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

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

Victim of overbearing government? Some would say 'yes'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  -30-

It won’t be easy to lock up Jason Van Dyke and ‘throw away’ key, it seems

It seems like not all that long ago that a Cook County jury returned the verdict that turned one-time Chicago cop Jason Van Dyke into a convicted killer, albeit one of the second degree.

VAN DYKE: A legal break? Or justice!?

Remember the elation that some people made a point of showing that day, marching through the streets of downtown Chicago to literally make it clear they were ecstatic at the thought that a white cop was off to prison.

IN THEIR WILDEST fantasies for something close to a life prison term. Something that would show what an outrage it was that he thought he could claim self-defense and “just doing his job” to justify the multiple gunshots he fired at a teenage boy – one who happened to be black.

Some went so far as to claim it was evidence that “justice” had been served against a “killer cop.”

While others, I’m sure, sat and stewed at the very thought that a police officer was being punished for doing his job – which on occasion requires use of physical force.

That was then. This is now!

FOR THE SUPREME Court of Illinois came down with a ruling Tuesday that I’m sure will infuriate the masses who were marching in the streets last year.

Basically, they backed up the way that Judge Vincent Gaughan handled the sentencing. Which basically was to give him a light prison term on the second-degree murder conviction, while ignoring all the aggravated battery charges that the jury piled on to their decision.

Those charges, all 16 – one for each pistol shot Van Dyke fired at his youthful assailant, were the ones that were supposed to add up to so much prison time that we’d literally have Van Dyke agonizing at the thought of decade upon decade in prison before finally dying.

Except, perhaps, for those ghoulish types whose idea of humor would be to have Van Dyke use a bed sheet to hang himself in his cell.

THAT DOESN’T SEEM in the cards.

For the Supreme Court rejected a request by the Illinois Attorney General’s office to reject the just-over-six-year prison term that Gaughan handed down.

They wanted the almighty Supreme Court to force Gaughan to resentence him in a way that would be more in keeping for those who want to see Van Dyke killed like a killer cop. Which now just ain’t a gonna happen!

The reality is that while I’m sure there are still legal motions that could be attempted on the off-hopes that a law clerk might be swayed enough to tell his judge to consider the merits of such an appeal, the point is they’re going to be long-shots.

WE MAY HAVE to accept the fact that the legal merits of the Van Dyke case are resolved. Now it’s just a matter of Van Dyke “doing” his time – which with time off for good behavior will come to about three years. He’s going to have something resembling a life left after he is released.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that the separation will turn out to be too much for the Van Dyke family – which may well be permanently fractured. That is something we will have to wait and see for ourselves.

I’m also sure that Van Dyke, now being held in a prison facility in upstate New York himself will think he’s suffering amply – his case is so notorious there isn’t a prison facility in Illinois capable of holding him without constant repeats of that beating incident while in a cell in Danbury, Ct., got national notoriety.

While others, I’m sure, will forevermore claim his fate is still better than the one Laquan McDonald suffered – an eternal rest in death at a Forest Park cemetery. A suburb whose residents likely would have freaked out and called for the cops if the teenager had ever set foot there while alive.

  -30-

Could Kanye West be the clue to resolving Chicago violence? Or is it merely evidence of Trump’s inanity!

Anybody who has read me for any length of time likely realizes I don’t think much of the overall skills level of President Donald J. Trump.

WEST: An Oval Office session?

But learning of the fact that Trump intends to have a meeting Thursday with a Chicagoan of some popular renown to gain his input into urban violence, prison reform and street gang violence is nothing more than laughable.

FOR THAT MEETING will be with the entertainer Kanye West. Who is a Chicago native and may well have opinions on all the issues that confront the city where he was raised.

TRUMP: He'll listen to anyone with material

But somehow, I just can’t see that “Mr. Kim Kardashian” has much of anything relevant to say. In fact, I think I take more seriously the thoughts of Chance the Rapper when it comes to finding solutions to Chicago’s problems.

He, at least, has been willing to put money into finding solutions for problems confronting the Chicago school system – which may be more of a real solution than anything I’m sure West will have to say to Trump when the two of them meet at the White House later this week.

CHANCE: Puts some money where his mouth is

By comparison, I expect West will mouth out lots of platitudes that Trump will be able to riff off of in terms of taking pot shots at Chicago – whose real problem, as far as Trump is concerned, is that it prevents Illinois from being like other Great Lakes states that were deluded enough to support Trump’s 2016 presidential bid with their Electoral College votes.

THEREBY MAKING IT a place he will go out of his way to ridicule, no matter how illogical or impractical his thoughts would be to actually implement. Then again, Trump once met with Kid Rock and Ted Nugent at the White House.

Anybody who doubts me ought merely to listen to Trump’s rant from earlier this week, when he told a gathering of law enforcement officials in Orlando, Fla., that the solution to Chicago’s crime problems is to give our police more authority to “stop and frisk.”

CEDRIC: What would he tell Donald?

A policy that specifically is prohibited under an agreement that police department reached with the American Civil Liberties Union – which regards such police policies as giving our cops far too much authority to harass people for no real reason.

If anything, the fact that Trump would make such a suggestion for Chicago shows he doesn’t have a clue as to what our city’s situation is and our problems are!

FOR THE MINDSET of those people who applauded the verdict of a jury in Cook County court with regards to police officer Jason Van Dyke is that it was a step towards limiting police authority in dealing with the public.

If we were to really start giving police the power to pat people down for any little suspicion the cops might have, it would go counter to the mindset of those individuals who are hopeful that a jury finally put aside their prejudices and issued a just verdict.

The only people who will think that “stop and frisk” makes any sense are the kind who were hoping for a Van Dyke acquittal on all those criminal charges a jury found him guilty of.

I don’t doubt West will come up with outrageous things to say come Thursday, and Trump will find a way to come up with what he thinks is a comical riff off of it. Which some may find entertaining, but which contributes next to nothing toward finding a solution to the problems that confront so many of our nation’s large cities.

Trump's idea of presidential 'advisers' -- Nugent and Rock, w/ Sarah Palin in the mix

SO EXCUSE ME (envision Steve Martin with the arrow through his head of some four decades ago) for viewing the thoughts of West (or just about any other entertainment personality) as being not all that relevant toward coming up with the answers to the great questions confronting our public policy issues.

Either that, or perhaps we ought to turn to Cedric the Entertainer.

Somehow, I suspect I’d take more seriously the thoughts of the actor who has both said Trump has a skin tone the color of Cheetos, but also has said it is wrong to think we can “boycott” the incumbent president.

And anybody who ever saw the 2002 film “Barbershop” still remembers what his “Eddie the barber” character said about civil rights activist Jesse Jackson.

  -30-

So who wins if the activists interfere with O’Hare access – the CTA?

Monday is the day that activists upset with the problems of urban violence in predominantly-black neighborhoods of Chicago say they want to impact O’Hare International Airport.

Activists want to ruin postcard-perfect image of O'Hare -- for a day

Figuring that such an act will get themselves national attention in ways that clogging up the Dan Ryan Expressway or the neighborhood surrounding Wrigley Field earlier this summer could not.

THE ACTIVISTS SAY they want to make it difficult for motorists to drive to O’Hare on Monday, which is Labor Day (a holiday weekend with a significant boost in travel traffic). They hope that such an act will offend the sensibilities of people whose economic well-being relies upon the airport that they will then pressure Mayor Rahm Emanuel to do something to address the problem of urban violence within parts of Chicago.

There may be some people who have that reaction. Although I also wouldn’t doubt there will be many others whose reaction will be to order Emanuel about to have the Chicago police do an encore, of sorts, of their behavior during the 1968 Democratic Convention protests.

What with all the attention the activity of 50 years ago has received in recent weeks, I wouldn’t doubt the idea would crop up into at least a few heads.

I do find it interesting that these activists at least have the sense not to try to interfere with airport operations proper. That, after all, would constitute a federal offense. Which would mean the federal courts and prosecutors getting involved.

Could this be O'Hare's easiest access on Monday?

IT ALSO WOULD put them in the bullseye of the officials in charge of this Age of Trump our society is now in. Not exactly a crowd that cares much about urban problems – except to the degree they can score cheap rhetorical points off of them for themselves.

So what should we think of the activity, where protesters say they’re going to gather around Noon to try to interfere with traffic using the Kennedy Expressway westbound from Cumberland Avenue to East River Road.

Which is the path that takes motorists into the airport grounds.

Is offending these peoples' sensibilities the goal of Monday activity?

Some activists have told the Chicago Sun-Times they are considering having some people jump over the median to try to interfere with eastbound traffic taking people out of the airport and back into the city proper.

REGARDLESS, IT WILL be interesting to see just how law enforcement behaves on Monday – a day that I’m sure they will wish they could focus on the usual inanity that tends to take place during holiday travel weekends.

Because they’re going to venture onto the Kennedy, this becomes an Illinois State Police matter – rather than one for the Chicago Police Department to address. Just think if they ventured a little farther west onto airport property and all of a sudden it became an issue for the FAA, the FBI and any other federal agency that could be dragged into the alphabet soup.

It would be a jurisdictional nightmare.

Although I couldn’t help but notice reports in recent weeks urging people who have to travel to O’Hare on Monday to consider using the Chicago Transit Authority to get there.

SPECIFICALLY, THE BLUE Line trains that run from downtown through the Northwest Side and wind up all the way at the airport.

Or is it all about embarrassing Rahm?

In theory, you can ride your train in to the airport, and wave bye-bye to all the protesters who think they’re causing chaos and bringing our society to a shutdown. I suppose activists could try blocking train tracks, but that would be insane on account of the legendary “third rail” (the electrified one that feeds power to the rail cars).

I’d hate to think there are people determined to die for this cause, which is supposed to be about reducing the level of people who are killed in Chicago.

Because they’d learn pretty quick just how apathetic many Chicagoans can be about this particular issue, which really reeks of a strong overtone of “It’s not my problem” for those who don’t live in the neighborhoods where the violence tends to focus upon.

  -30-

‘Whole world was watching’ Chicago 50 years ago; does it still care now?

I was a mere child just a few days away from my third birthday on the days some 50 years ago this week when the Chicago police engaged in their officially riotous behavior that included use of so much tear gas that even patrons of the upscale Conrad Hilton Hotel wound up impacted.

History Museum artifacts of convention protests

For that matter, it was exactly five decades ago Tuesday that the protests taking place to express objections to U.S policy in Vietnam reached the peak of some protesters being thrown through the glass of the hotel’s front windows – and some protesters who tried fleeing police beatings wound up being dragged back outside the hotel before being administered a walloping in the name of “law and order.”

I’VE HEARD THE stories throughout my life, and those images pop into my head every time I have reason to walk past the hotel. Trying to envision the carnage that occurred in a stretch of Michigan Avenue that would like to think itself too refined for such uncouth behavior.

It definitely was not the typical presidential nominating convention such as the one held in Chicago 28 years later – that event held at the United Center felt like a political pep rally and I recall many people wishing their access to the arena included a pass to the team clubhouses so they could stop by and check out Michael Jordan’s locker.

What was supposed to happen

But it caught my attention that amongst all the stories being published in recent weeks commemorating the fifth-decade anniversary (of sorts) of the event that some people are determined to put their own partisan political spin on what happened all those years ago.

Even from some who, like myself, only have second-hand memories and tales to tell of the events of the Democratic National Convention of ’68.

THE CONVENTION HAPPENINGS did eventually result in an investigation – one that found the police to be responsible for the outlandish and violent behavior that occurred. A “police riot” was the official term used to describe the events.

Convention craze incorporated into film

Even though then-Mayor Richard J. Daley always tried defending police behavior by citing it as “fact” that nobody was killed amongst the violence. As though he wanted to think police showed restraint in the way they conducted themselves.

Similar to those people who these days probably think police officer Joseph Van Dyke – who is set to go on trial in a couple of weeks – was merely serving and protecting the Chicago populace when he fired all those shots into a teenager who may or may not have posed a physical threat to those nearby.

I don’t doubt there are people who think it was 50 years ago today that the world went haywire, and their idea of “Make America Great Again” includes returning to those days when a cop was a hero – and the perps all got what they deserved.

Convention outcome an afterthought?

I LITERALLY STUMBLED across an anonymous Internet comment recently about how it was the reporting of the convention happenings (both inside the International Amphitheater where the political rallies occurred and outside where the protests happened) that was flawed.

It was Walter Cronkite, this person wants to believe, who “lied” to the American people about what happened in Chicago, all as part of a plot to promote the anti-war message that the activists were trying to spread.

The “most trusted man in America” was supposedly an un-American freak? A conspiracy between the protesters and news media organizations?

It definitely seems like someone is trying to revise history in the image of The Donald; making sure our perception of past events coincides with this modern-day Age of Trump we’re all supposed to want to live in now.

THEN AGAIN, THE kind of people who want to believe this most likely are the grand-children of those gullible enough to believe all the Yippie-activist rhetoric of 50 years ago that they were going to spike the city’s drinking water supply (as in Lake Michigan) with LSD.

Which was something that activist Abbie Hoffman always encouraged because it would make he and his group seem much more powerful if they were actually capable of doing such a thing.

I don’t doubt that tales of protesters throwing bags of excrement at police have some bearing in truth. It was just the kind of behavior that would offend certain types of people into voting for Richard M. Nixon’s “law and order” platform and to thinking the only real wrong was that he was driven from office six years later.

As for the rest of us, we’ll wonder about the passage of time. And perhaps try to speculate on what Mayor Daley REALLY said in response to then-Sen. Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut when the latter accused the Chicago police of “Gestapo-like tactics” in their behavior of some five decades ago.

  -30-

Is most obnoxious tactic also the most effective when it comes to protest?

It has not yet been a full month since that day when Rev. Michael Pfleger led a band of protesters to march for a mile-and-a-half right on the Dan Ryan Expressway – with the stunt meant to call attention to problems of urban violence.

HARDIMAN: Wants to 'redistribute' pain

Now, another activist group (this one including political dreamer Tio Hardiman) wants to do a similar stunt – although for what it’s worth, they have said they resent anyone who tries comparing their event to that of Father Pfleger.

THIS GROUP WANTS to march in the middle of Lake Shore Drive, and not just any old portion of the road.

They want to cause traffic congestion from Diversey to Belmont avenues, then walk over to Wrigley Field. Which on the day they plan to do their event is one in which the Chicago Cubs will be playing, and it also is the first day of the Lollapalooza music festival.

Meaning it’s likely there will be many white people out trying to enjoy their lives but will find their recreational plans interfered with by these activists – who by the way are also claiming they want to see Rahm Emanuel resign his mayoral post in shame.

Who’d have thought that Michael Pfleger, with his decades of history of outlandish tactics, would come across as the calm, rational guy.

PFLEGER: Tried drawing attention to So. Side

NOW I DON’T mean to try to undermine the problems Chicago has with regards to urban violence. There are parts of this city where it is risky to venture into. For the people who, by circumstance, wind up having to live their lives in those communities, life can be fairly miserable.

And for the rest of us, it is shallow to think we can ignore those people and those communities just because we don’t live there.

So in that sense, I comprehend the intent of what Hardiman and his allies are trying to accomplish. We, the masses, do need to be made more aware of what is happening. And perhaps we do, occasionally, need to have our noses rubbed in reality because we don’t pay sufficient attention.

But I can’t help but think this proposed event could turn out much worse.

Will these kinds of people want to bother with problem/

BECAUSE WHAT WAS key to the event that Pfleger staged was that he focused on a stretch of the Dan Ryan Expressway right in the heart of one of the neighborhoods where the urban violence is at its worse.

A segment where many people merely pass by as they drive along the Dan Ryan and never even think of stopping for anything. Their attention, however briefly, was forced to focus on the South Side.

Whereas this proposed protest is such that it is focusing on a portion of the North Side where it is possible for people to think that talk of a violent Chicago is just another one of those lies spewed by President Donald Trump to appease the whack jobs who still think highly of the man. They, after all, will believe anything – no matter how absurd it sounds!

As the Chicago Tribune points out, the police district for that area has one of the lowest totals (11) of people being shot this year, with 36 shootings all of last year. And some of those were people who were shot by police for causing trouble.

THE IDEA OF activists come next Thursday is to get in the way – to make sure that some concern-goers get there late and perhaps some of the Cubs fans be massively inconvenienced.

EMANUEL: He's not going anywhere anytime soon

In fact, some of the activists organizing this event say they think Pfleger’s event was flawed because it did nothing to “redistribute the pain” they say is felt by black Chicago residents.

Personally, I thought Pfleger’s event succeeded because it managed to tie up traffic without anyone getting killed by a motorist trying to get through. It made its point without getting distracted by fatalities.

I could easily see this one failing because someone driving along (and not on) LSD strikes a protester – and the masses of Chicago will think that protester got what he (or she) deserved for trying to walk in the middle of a major thoroughfare!

  -30-

What will the carnage be like along the Dan Ryan come Saturday morning?

By the time you read this, it may be over.

DAN RYAN: A major Chicago thoroughfare

The “it” being the protest march by which some eight busloads of people being led by Rev. Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina parish will try to force the majority of Chicagoans who like to ignore the problem of urban violence to acknowledge the situation.

PROTESTERS SAY THEY plan to gather at 79^th Street along the Dan Ryan, then walk onto the interstate highway (I-90/94) to march north for a mile-and-a-half – ultimately finishing their political statement at 67^th Street.

Their intent is to disrupt the flow of traffic to the point where, for a bit of time Saturday morning, people won’t be able to easily commute around the city of Chicago.

Considering that the Dan Ryan Expressway is THE major path leading motorists from the South Side into downtown, these protesters could cause some serious inconvenience if they truly are capable of blocking up traffic.

Although the fact that they’re choosing to do so on a Saturday morning means they’re not messing with the rush of workers to jobs downtown that exists every weekday morning. I suppose that is Father Pfleger’s one concession to the rest of Chicago in staging this protest action.

I HAVE HEARD some people who say they plan to join in the protest that they’re not terribly concerned about interfering with traffic because they’re more concerned about the level of violence that occurs in parts of Chicago.

Some will say they think their inconvenience living in certain South and West side neighborhoods and having to tolerate such violence as an everyday fact of life is far worse than any drive into downtown that will be messed up Saturday morning.

But the part that has me wondering is for the people who feel compelled to drive along the Dan Ryan and have to pass through the portion from 79^th to 67^th streets.

The portion that protesters want to clog up

I have to confess – I am a South Side native who often has driven along the Dan Ryan (more than any other Chicago expressway) and that particular stretch of the road is one that I’m used to whizzing right past. I might occasionally catch a glimpse of a commuter waiting for a CTA Red Line ‘el’ train that runs down the middle of the Ryan.

BUT IT IS a part of the city that many pass by without giving it, or the surrounding neighborhoods, much of any thought.

I’m wondering how many people trying to drive along the Dan Ryan will suddenly find the pedestrians trying to walk in the road and will have trouble stopping in time.

Will we have protesting pedestrians being rushed to the hospital, or a pileup of a few automobiles that collided because they were trying to avoid hitting someone in the street.

There’s a reason that state law specifically prohibits people trying to walk along the expressways, and why the Illinois State Police (who have jurisdiction over the Dan Ryan) have warned they will arrest anybody who tries to carry out their protest to the fullest extent of their threats.

WHICH COULD MEAN there won’t be much of a protest along the Dan Ryan – instead, it will be eight bus loads of people being loaded into wagons and hauled away for arrest, Eventually, they will face court dates on charges of Criminal Trespassing to State-Supported Property – and any other charges that police and prosecutors deem necessary.

How busy will they be Saturday

Which will likely be decided by how peacefully they cooperate with police Saturday morning. The ones who persist in putting up a fight are the ones who most likely will get charges piled on – and wind up having no chance of working out a deal that results in all charges dropped.

The “worst case” scenario for Saturday morning is that protesters wind up getting killed, and a majority of people in this city turn cold-hearted and say they got what they deserved for walking along an Interstate highway.

Which would truly be the worst possible message that could be sent by people who are trying to make for a safer Chicago for all of us.

  -30-

Immigration detention center project won’t die; just going further south

It seems the powers that be who want to build a jail-like facility for people awaiting hearings on immigration violations (and possible deportation from the United States) are not about to give up.

Will these types of activists express their objections ...

Their plans to build such a facility somewhere in the Chicago metropolitan area to accommodate immigration violators in the Midwestern U.S. are cropping up again.

ONLY NOW, THEY’VE moved not only across the state line to Indiana, but south to Newton County – a place so far south that I’m sure the locals who live there would seriously resent any claim that they’re part of the Chicago area (Wikipedia says they are).

It’s a fairly isolated place with lots of open space, which means it might be possible to build the desired facility in a place where it would have little interaction with the real world – just like more conventional prison facilities.

Perhaps this is what the project’s backers feel is necessary to get away from the objections that have constantly arisen all the other opportunities that this has come up for discussion.

Personally, I remember back when the powers-that-be wanted to build such a facility just outside of Joliet. When locals objected, talks shifted toward building it just south of Crete (which is roughly the southernmost suburb of Chicago) not far from the now-defunct Balmoral Racecourse.

ALL THE HOSTILITY toward the project caused Crete officials to back away, which caused the project’s supporters to shift over the state line into Indiana and there was some consideration to building it in Gary not far from the Gary/Chicago International Airport.

Concerns about the airport’s flight patterns being a potential security risk for a detention facility, along with the outspoken immigration activists who have followed this project everywhere it has gone, caused Gary municipal officials to give up their support for the idea.

... so far distant from Chicago?

Now, it seems the supporters of a detention center have found a place about 65 miles away from Chicago (about as far south as Kankakee) where they hope there will be a lack of opposition to the idea of locking up people who may only be caught up in the immigration bureaucracy because they got pulled over for a traffic violation – and some eager cop was willing to notify immigration to “take ‘em away.”

As the talks proceed toward whether to build such a facility in Newton County -- a place whose total population (just under 14,000) is less than most suburbs. I’ll be curious to see how many of the activist-types will continue to follow this project.

BECAUSE SOME OF the objectors are people with an interest in our nation’s immigration policy, and they have followed it from municipality to municipality.

From Joliet to Crete to Gary, Ind., will they now show up in Kentland (the county seat) to let their objections be known. Or will they figure they’ve pushed this proposed facility far out enough into the “middle of nowhere” that they can live with its existence “somewhere else.”

I’ve heard the arguments on all sides, with the objectors hating the idea of detaining people while the immigration violations are pending. While supporters either aren’t bothered with their incarceration, or they’ll argue that these facilities aren’t really prisons.

Some may even argue that the current status of these violators would improve if they weren’t held in traditional jail conditions (many are sent to the McHenry County Jail in Woodstock, which has a contract with the federal government to detain such people).

PERSONALLY, I’M MOST concerned with the fact that these detention facilities are run by private companies, rather than by a government entity like the federal Bureau of Prisons. Meaning many of the regulations meant to protect the rights of inmates in the federal system do not apply. This particular facility would be built by GEO Group of Boca Raton, Fla.

I don’t doubt that in this Age of Trump that we’re now in, there are some who aren’t bothered by that thought. But we should be. Our “rights” are only as safe as the most vulnerable in our society.

And it may well be that among the most vulnerable are those people whose immigration status is unclear – particularly since there are those who enjoy being able to harass such individuals to make up for the short-comings in their own lives.

So has this project moved far enough away from Chicago that the locals will be willing to tell its objections to “stuff it!” or will the objectors (a combination of religious folks and Latino activists) continue to push to where it eventually becomes an Indianapolis issue, rather than Chicago?

  -30-

Rauner won't get pressured to sign proposed gun legislation into Ill. law

Gov. Bruce Rauner will be most remembered for his willingness to go two full years without a budget for Illinois government (causing many of the financial problems the state has today), but he’s also a governor who signed into law measures viewed as supportive of progressive views on abortion, immigration and transgender rights.

RAUNER: What will he do?

In each of those cases, Rauner put his signature of approval on measures the Democratic-majority General Assembly enacted with overwhelming approval – which means Rauner most likely felt pressured into signing off on issues he would have preferred to ignore.

AS THINGS TURNED out, Rauner refused to feel similar pressure in acting Tuesday on a measure the state Legislature approved to require retailers who sell firearms to be licensed by the state. Rauner dug out the "veto" pen in rejecting the idea -- saying he thought it excessive business regulation.

Rauner's rejection came one day after he was confronted with questions about his intentions on the bill, with the governor trying to repeat a stock answer that “a comprehensive solution is what I’m advocating for.”

He also talks of “work(ing) with our members of the General Assembly on a bipartisan basis to come up with real solutions on a bipartisan basis.” Apparently, it was clear enough for him to act.

IVES: Can't add gun control to rant list

He saw how signing off on the measure would have brought additional political heat onto himself. With just six days remaining until the primary Election Day in which he's seeking nomination for re-election, the last thing he wanted to give his ideologue critics (and they are an outspoken bunch) is another issue with which to smack him about.

RAUNER FOLLOWED UP his “none of your business”-type answers with a "drop dead" action to those people concerned about the growing access of firearms in our society -- particularly amongst some individuals who probably shouldn't have the ability to bear arms. That is what will appease the people whom Rauner wants to think of being his political backers; as in the ones who will view any efforts to enact new laws that restrict firearm access as being repulsive.

If Rauner had signed this newest bill into law, the kind of people openly campaigning against his re-election would have added “gun control” to the list of other sins they perceive the governor has committed against conservative-oriented people.

Will Rauner add to 'ideologue' reputation?

The last thing the governor wanted to do in this final week before Tuesday’s primary election is give GOP opponent Jeanne Ives yet another issue with which to bash him about.

Hence, we got the generic double-talk that says as little as possible, but which can be spun in interpretation as calling for a grand overall solution to the problem of too many firearms in our society – and way too many in the hands of people who probably shouldn’t be allowed to have them at all.

BUT THIS STILL is Illinois, the hard-core “blue” state of the Midwest (Indiana being the hard-core “red” state and many of the others being blue-leaning, but capable of being flipped in individual Elections day).

And with the mood of the nation making gun control a hot button issue, Rauner is now going to get a whack upside his head on a national scale.

I’m sure Rauner thinks he’s “damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t.” Which is why his vagueness was all too understandable. He probably thinks by acting now, he can minimize the damage.

It can't be used against him in next week's primary, and perhaps he thinks that by the time the Nov. 6 general election comes around, it will be a long-forgotten issue. Perhaps he thinks it will be like all the people who ranted about Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and the "pop tax" who now don't say much about it.

NOT THAT IT will succeed. For anything related to firearms or violence is going to get an intense amount of attention. It is, after all, the political “flavor of the month.”

Why else would high school students across the nation, including in Chicago, be planning a walkout from class Wednesday as a way of urging political people to take action on this issue -- it has been one month since the Florida school incident that triggered much of the recent rhetoric.

How will student outpour influence firearms debate?

And yes, I find it humorous to read the line in a Chicago Tribune report that says school officials are cooperating with organizers to plan walkouts that are “nonpolitical.”

I’m not sure how that’s possible. Too many people of both sides will want to politicize what happens Wednesday, along with Rauner's veto. I'm sure the Democratic majority of the Legislature will take pride in overriding Rauner later this year, probably as much joy as many of the students who participate Wednesday will be doing so just for the joy of cutting class!

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Would we be better off ignoring Bannon than protesting his presence?

It was a rule of thumb I once heard from a former news colleague about the importance of covering events by white supremacists and other crackpots – it was important to do so in order to expose them.

BANNON: Better off ignored?

Let the public see how lame and pathetic they truly are so as to discredit anything they ever have to say.

A PART OF me was always skeptical of such logic – particularly in this Age of Trump that we’re now in where the crackpots are more than eager to scream “fake news” and want to believe only what falls in line with their own loony ideology.

They’re more than likely to want to believe the loony talk and use the fact that it got covered as evidence of its truthfulness.

So what do I think of those University of Chicago students who on Thursday felt compelled to protest the possible presence of one-time Trump adviser Steven Bannon on the Hyde Park neighborhood campus?

I actually wonder if this is an instance where Bannon would be likely to show up, draw a miniscule crowd and wind up being ignored. Whereas attention has now been drawn to his possible arrival, and Bannon himself is likely to have a bolstered ego as a result.

AFTER ALL, WOULD so many people get so pissed off if he weren’t such an important person? If we’d ignore him, it might be a blow to his ego by showing how irrelevant he and his followers are to the true majority of our society.

For the record, a professor at the Booth School of Business invited Bannon (who when he wasn’t working for the Trump administration was, until recently, the head of a website devoted to spewing the kind of rhetoric the crackpots enjoy) to be a part of a forum on globalization and immigration.

Bannon, whom many have claimed is motivated by racist ideas, would be expected to speak out on how bad those ideas are for our nation, while an academic type yet-to-be-determined would speak on their behalf.

TRUMP: Backers consider protests a win

I could easily envision such a program attracting a couple-dozen spectators on campus, with no attention paid by the general public.

EXCEPT NOW, THEY’RE going to be able to boast to dozens of protesters tossing out rhetoric such as “Nazi thug” and “illegitimate fascist.”

Which I’m sure Bannon and his ilk will somehow take as signs of how “out-of-touch” the majority of us are with them. Only they want to believe they’re the majority. Yes, I think that when Bannon learned of this outburst, his ego got bloated.

Which is the last thing I would want to see become of a man who was considered by some to be the brains behind the most absurd of President Donald Trump’s ridiculous rhetoric during the months last year when Bannon actually had a White House office and Oval Office access.

A part of me believes this so much because I remember back to my own college days in the mid-1980s – back when a big issue for protest were the apartheid policies that resulted in a racially-segregated South Africa. Many U.S. businesses made a point of cutting their investment there so as to try to sway protests.

I REMEMBER THE protests that took place, and the forums held on campus that did little to sway anybody. In fact, I always suspected the people most inclined to back the old regime (from back in the days when Nelson Mandela was regarded as just another black man in prison) took a certain amount of pride.

A moment from the dismal past

Particularly whenever they started screaming “Communist” to describe Mandela and anybody else who had a problem with a roughly 10 percent minority being in charge of the country as a whole.

There are times I wonder if such rhetoric actually prolonged the existence of the old South Africa that might have withered away more quickly if we hadn’t made the nitwits feel all the more important for their rancid rhetoric.

Just as I’m sure there are those who are eagerly awaiting the day that Trump and his allies get reduced back to irrelevance within our society just as the days of separateness are now an absurd part of South Africa’s past.

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