Will political retribution be swift and merciless? Or long and drawn-out!

It wasn’t a surprise that Democrats in the Illinois House of Representatives failed to override the veto by Gov. Bruce Rauner – they have a veto-proof majority when EVERYBODY shows up and votes in unison.

DRURY: Dem with nerve to vote 'no'

But the absence of state Rep. Ken Dunkin, D-Chicago, when the Illinois House met on Wednesday literally left them short.

SO WHY WOULD Democrats and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, even bother with a vote?

There was a Friday deadline for action. But the vote is more about putting people on the record – legislators were forced to take a stand “aye” or “nea” with some wimpier-types deciding to vote “present” instead.

Democrats who want to continue to have the financial support of Madigan and the Illinois Democratic Party’s electoral apparatus had to vote for an override, while Republicans who want to have a chance at getting campaign cash from Rauner knew better than to vote against it.

The bill in question was a measure that would allow for labor disputes involving state government employees to be resolved by an arbitrator. Rauner hates that idea because he claims those arbitrators are not elected officials themselves.

HE’S RIGHT. THEY’RE not. They are experts in labor law who by not being beholden to electoral interests are capable of putting the issues of any particular labor dispute into their proper legal context.

FRANKS: A usual Madigan thorn

Which might not be something that Rauner would want because one of his priorities is undermining the authority of labor unions within state government. To the point where Rauner made it known prior to the vote that he was watching the votes of eight non-Chicago Democrats to see if they would stick with Madigan (five of them did, so now they’ll get GOP abuse).

Anyway, 68 legislators wound up voting “yea” – three short of the 71 needed to override Rauner’s objections. Dunkin, in his absence, was one of three Dems who didn’t back Madigan, as were Jack Franks, D-Marengo, and Scott Drury, D-Highwood.


Springfield-based legislators Poe ...

Franks voted “present” (he’s always a thorn  in Madigan's heel; it’s a wonder at times he doesn’t just become a Republican), while Drury actually had the nerve to vote “no.” He told reporter-types at the Statehouse he objects to the fact that the measure would prevent state workers from being able to go on strike – a right he called “sacrosanct.”

WHILE THE TWO representatives from Springfield – Tim Butler and Raymond Poe – both were the Republicans who didn’t back Rauner by voting “present.” Although that was more of a stance than that of state Rep. Terri Bryant of Murphysboro in Southern Illinois.


... and Butler didn't back Rauner

The Capitol Fax newsletter reported that she was in the House chambers at the time of the vote, but somehow didn’t hit the proper button that would have cast a stance.

Bryant herself is a former state employee and member of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, while Butler and Poe both have many, many members of that union who live in their district.

Voting for a measure that would be perceived as anti-union could wind up harming them when they have to seek re-election in the future. Not even Rauner’s campaign contributions might not be enough to help them prevail against a well-funded Democrat – which is something that Madigan might be able to find.

THEN AGAIN, WHAT will happen to the Democrats who didn’t back Madigan? The speaker himself refused to say this week that Dunkin was on his private “list” of persona non grata because he didn’t show up (Dunkin’s Facebook page had pictures of him in New York City).

DUNKIN: The 'no-show'

Although it was interesting to hear the boasts that if Dunkin had shown up, he could have twisted the arms of everybody in his caucus and got the 71 votes! From anybody but Madigan, I wouldn’t believe it. From “Mr. Speaker,” anything is possible.

So this issue moves forward, sort of. Because the end result is that the attempt by Democrats to claim they were making a concession to Rauner’s union opposition (the bill would have prevented strikes in the future) goes nowhere.

Which means nothing changes. Except that now, Madigan and Rauner can start punishing those people who wouldn't align with their view. Which means that we, the public, wind up losing!

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What should we think when political people conflict on what they say

Learning of the latest dispute involving the Republican distaste for President Barack Obama reminded me of an old incident right here at City Hall – one in which then-Mayor Richard M. Daley didn’t come across as looking that good.

DURBIN: Says somebody insulted president

I recall that the Chicago Sun-Times came up with a story related to the McCormick Place convention center that infuriated Daley!

HE MADE PUBLIC statements to the press corps at City Hall about how the newspaper was so wrong and must have shown its complete ignorance by taking comments so far out of context that they made no sense.

There was just one problem – the on-the-record source for that particular story (whose minutia was so intense that I must confess to not even remembering the specifics) was then-Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority director John Schmidt.

I specifically remember calling Schmidt that morning (I worked for the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago back then) to talk to him about the story, and he told me that the Sun-Times had quoted him accurately – and gotten all its facts right.

It’s a minor dispute of facts. It wouldn’t shock me to learn that I’m the only person who even remembers this particular story.

BUT IT WAS a lesson I learned about how seriously we should take it when people start attacking the legitimacy of what gets reported.

Sometimes, the denials shouldn’t be taken that seriously. Some people just want to be able to say something didn’t happen.

OBAMA: Ignoring the slur

While others are willing to let the word about something get out, while having their own reasons for not wanting to publicly stand behind it later.

And sometimes, there are just conflicts amongst the various officials. It doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

ALL OF WHICH is relevant to comprehending the dispute concerning Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who had his people put something on his Facebook page about the Republican official who supposedly told the president to his face, “I cannot even stand to look at you.”

Aides to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, quickly made a point of saying they want a retraction and an apology for what they say is a, “reckless allegation.”

Obama’s official spokesman said he looked into the incident, and couldn’t find any evidence that anybody had the nerve to say that directly to the president.

BOEHNER: He's outraged!!!

“It did not happen,” spokesman Jay Carney told reporter-types at the White House, with officials later using the word "misunderstanding" to describe why it was thought something bad was said.

YET DURBIN STILL says it did, going so far as to use the incident in a fundraising pitch. He's definitely not going along with the rants coming from House Republicans who are demanding that Durbin cough up his source for the tidbit and apologize for besmirching their reputation – which in the overall scheme of things isn’t all that important.

Is anyone shocked to learn that the distaste for Obama is so intense in certain quarters that there are people who don’t want to work with him? The underlying premise of this tidbit is so apparent that it is beyond dispute!

Personally, I don’t have any first-hand information about this moment. I don’t know who said it, or exactly when. Or what Durbin’s motivation for passing along trivial gossip would be if that is what truly has occurred.

In fact, I’m not about to take it as any sign that Obama and Durbin are in some sort of long-term political split. I don’t think the Daley/Schmidt dynamic was impacted much by the long-ago difference in public statements.

IF ANYTHING, I’M inclined to think the Obama camp wants to downplay this particular incident because it supposedly occurred during the now-complete talks to end the federal government shutdown that lasted for 16 days.

What’s the point of dredging up old trivia about how people don’t like the president and let their personal taste influence their politics. He’s forgiving, in that sense. Maybe he realizes there will be many more insults in the future for him to get worked up over.

Or maybe Obama is just following a pair of axioms given to us by the fictional Don Vito Corleone. “It’s business, not personal.” And, “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”

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And on this corner, we see a couple of crackheads selling drugs to your kids…

How many people would think to use the 45^th anniversary of the date of the shooting death of Martin Luther King, Jr., to take a bus tour of some fairly decrepit neighborhoods in Chicago to point out all the things that are wrong?

EMANUEL: Is he really all-powerful?

That actually was the tactic of the Chicago Teachers Union, which on Thursday put together a bus tour meant to take unsuspecting people to the neighborhoods that will be impacted by the Chicago Public Schools plan to close some 60 facilities.

AS THOUGH IF people see for themselves the street gang-infested neighborhoods that some children would now have to walk through or attend schools in due to the closures, officials will suddenly feel sympathy.

Somehow, I doubt it worked. Largely because the Chicago schools officials already are putting on their “game” face that they’ve acted, and they’re not in a reconsideration mood.

That’s how I take schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett’s comments earlier this week about how she’s insulted that people are describing the schools closure plan as “racist” because so many of the schools that will be closed down are in African-American neighborhoods.

Somehow, I don’t think taking people on a bus tour of black-oriented neighborhoods will sway that many people, because too many Chicagoans already are oriented to ignoring such neighborhoods.

PERHAPS THEY MIGHT think, “It’s not my neighborhood,” so they don’t concern themselves with it. One only has to look at recent activity along Michigan Avenue involving robberies to realize that there are no barricades between neighborhoods, and we really are tied together as one city.

One’s problems ought to be considered as all of our problems.

Now I have stated before that I think the real tragedy concerning the fight about closing schools is that it puts people living in substandard neighborhoods into fighting to maintain schools that are substandard themselves.

We ought to be thinking about how to improve the opportunities for those people – rather than encouraging this particular fight that has the ability to make everybody look seriously stupid.

OR ARROGANT, WHICH is how the Emanuels are now coming across in this particular political fight.

Take Mayor Rahm’s brother, Ezekiel, the one who is getting attention these days for the book he recently wrote about the lives of himself, Rahm and third brother Ari. He also is the guy who went on the Huffington Post to “advise” the Chicago Teachers Union to, “give in now. Give in now. Rahm will win. He always does win.”

He also elaborated that the unions, by putting up any fight to Emanuel and the Chicago Public Schools (who are merely following Rahm’s dictates on this issue) are merely “banging their heads against the wall.”

That’s tough talk! It seems that Rahm Emanuel (if his brother’s talk is at all true) thinks he’s already as mighty and powerful a municipal executive as anyone named Daley!

AS ONE WHO remembers the mayoral terms of people like Eugene Sawyer, Mike Bilandic and Jane Byrne, I’m well aware that it isn’t the position itself that gives people the power to treat Chicago like their personal fiefdom. Particularly in the case of Byrne, this city has a way of snapping back at people who try to push too hard!

It makes me wonder if the final outcome of all of this is going to be the bloody political showdown that will make the racially-tinged hostility of “Council Wars” seem like a political tea party!

All I know for sure is that we have a teachers union that is angry enough to charter a bus to drive around some neighborhoods that many of us try to pretend do not exist. That is, if we have ever even bothered to set foot in those neighborhoods (which may be the real problem).

It could end in a hard-fought victory for the mayor, if certain circumstances work in his favor.

THEN AGAIN, IT could also turn out to be a case where Emanuel (as in the mayor) gets hung out to dry.

Could this someday become the sight of a bloody mess? Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

 

Because that kind of arrogance (“He always does win!”) is usually the type of attitude that causes people to desire the equivalent of a severed head put on a pike just in front of the Picasso statue!

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Those random moments of life

I read stories such as the Sunday morning account of a shooting incident in the Marquette Park neighborhood caused by a driver who double-parked his car and left other vehicles trapped and I wonder when it will be my turn to be impacted by one of life’s random moments.

A stupid incident nearby results in gunfire

Because it is at times like this that I feel lucky in life. None of the stupid, trivial incidents that could have encountered me turned into anyone’s overly-violent temper tantrum!

IT IS THESE moments that ought to remind us how much we should enjoy our lives while we have them. Because something absurd could always happen.

There doesn’t have to be a legitimate reason why someone gets hurt. It literally can be “just because.”

Take the incident that occurred around 71^st Street and Maplewood Avenue early Sunday. According to the Chicago Tribune, the incident involved a car with two men inside who were upset that another car had parked alongside it.

Witnesses told the newspaper that there was some room and the driver who felt trapped probably could have driven alongside it, then out into the street. Words were exchanged, and after the car managed to get by, the driver felt the need to get out of the car and walk back a few feet.

AT WHICH POINT the handgun came out and the shot was fired.

The man who was shot was “walking, talking, breathing, living,” police told the Tribune. He was eventually taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in suburban Oak Lawn.

As for the person who was shot, he was from DeKalb, and was in the Marquette Park neighborhood to attend a birthday celebration of a relative who lived on the block.

Now if I wanted, I could turn this into a diatribe about concealed carry. The problem I have with the idea of more people packing pistols on their person is the potential for someone with a temper (particularly someone who thinks they need that weapon to defend themselves at all times) to get stupid amongst the rest of us.

BUT THAT’S ACTUALLY a lesser point.

I’m more bothered by the randomness of the event – since I suspect no one who was in the neighborhood was “out to get” anyone. This really was a matter of tempers flaring, and someone getting hurt as a result.

Any one variance in this event, and perhaps that pistol wouldn’t have been reached for at all.

It reminds me of an incident a quarter of a century ago, back when I worked at the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago. There was a year when I was on the overnight shift (you should see the Medical Examiner’s office at 5 a.m.), and on this particular day I was finishing my shift.

IT WAS ABOUT 9 a.m., and I had my car parked on lower Wacker Drive near the old City News offices at Wacker Drive and Wabash Avenue.

I got into my car, started the ignition and wanted to back out of the space I was parked in. At that moment, another car had just passed me. The driver saw I was pulling out, and she decided she wanted to back up a bit so she could take the parking spot once I vacated it.

The problem was that another car was right behind her, and THAT driver saw me wanting to leave. He decided (rightfully so, as far as I’m concerned) that the spot would be his.

Soon enough, I had these two people shouting at each other. Verbal violence being spewed all over the place. And I was potentially right in the crossfire.

BECAUSE OF THE way their vehicles were positioned, I was trapped. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t leave.

It wound up taking a couple of officers in a squad car that just happened to pass by to get these people calm enough for one of them (I don’t remember which one) to move their car just enough so that I could get out.

It could have ended not far from here!

What would have happened if one of them had lost their temper? I would hate to think my life would have ended on lower Wacker Drive at age 22 with a tiny, long-forgotten story on the City News “wire.”

Then again, my fellow reporters probably would have seen how stupid the incident inherently was, and would have “cheaped” me out – as in not worth writing much about.

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Five more days to go ‘til picket lines?

What should we think of the standoff currently taking place between the Chicago Public Schools and the teachers it would employ to educate all those students it has?

We got the sight on Monday of Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis at a downtown rally, using the Daley Plaza and the shadow of the Picasso statue to make sure teachers realize they are the ones who have been snubbed – and they are the ones who need to stick together.

IT LOOKED ALL the more like Monday will be THE DAY that the teacher pickets become the real thing, instead of just informational acts.

Yet on Tuesday, we got the sight of Public Schools head Jean-Claude Brizard trying to reassure teachers that there is a chance the two sides can reach a contractual agreement by the end of the week.

The Chicago Tribune reported that Brizard said “steady progress” is being made, while adding that the stress of a strike would be “tremendous” on the families of Chicago Teachers Union members.

Which is true enough. It also is encouraging to hear that the hostile rhetoric is being toned-down by the school administration and city officials.

BECAUSE IT IS the reason why I have been able to sympathize with the Chicago Teachers Union members who are being asked to do significantly more work for minimal boosts in compensation.

It wouldn’t shock me to learn that city officials wish they could get their teachers to agree to a pay cut, and regard any increase as extravagant. They have been more than willing to play to the people whose ideological hang-ups make them want to think that everybody ought to feel grateful for employment.

Of course, they just think that way about other people – they think their own employment status is special.

I’d just like to see any of these people try to do the work of an educator – because I suspect they’d fail spectacularly. Perhaps because I realize I don’t have the patience required to teach. I couldn’t do it, and I doubt I’m alone.

SO AS FOR the idea that Chicago Public Schools officials are now trying to publicly put a conciliatory tone to their talks? It’s only a shame that it didn’t happen a few weeks sooner.

Perhaps we really would have reason to think that “steady progress” is being made, and that there is a good chance that the next few days will see a contractual agreement that would keep the teachers gainfully employed for the upcoming year, next few years, or however long a time period the two sides are able to agree to.

I’m not about to predict what’s going to happen with regards to the teachers’ contract. Because I’d have to admit that any guess I would make would be mere dumb luck if it turned out that I guessed correctly.

This thing could go either way, although I won’t be shocked and appalled if we wind up seeing picket lines at schools across Chicago and outside of City Hall in coming weeks – something we haven’t had since the days of Harold Washington as mayor.

THEN AGAIN, MAYBE this is all just a plot to make us reminisce fondly for the days of Richard M. Daley as mayor.

The city’s public school system did manage to go without labor disputes for his entire two decade-plus stint on City Hall’s fifth floor.

Although I doubt that the real key to success is a return to the past. People who want to return to “old ways” of doing things oftentimes are the real problem – which is why I can’t say I find the public schools officials to be 100 percent wrong.

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Programming ain’t free, no matter how much you want to dream it ought to be

Could the Chicago Cubs become the determining factor in the ongoing dispute between Tribune Co. television stations and DirecTV?

I honestly wonder if the idea of rabid Cubs fans angry that they can’t get their favorite ballclub’s Opening Day game Thursday against the Washington Nationals on television will be enough to scare the sides together into reaching an agreement.

LET’S BE HONEST. Chicago Cubs fans are not a rational breed to begin with. Who’s to say what they’re capable of doing if they’re denied the chance to see a game!

As for Chicago White Sox fans, their home opener isn’t for another week. Besides, the team’s games have shifted to other stations so heavily that a loss of access to WGN-TV won’t have as much of an impact as it would for Cubs’ ballgame broadcasts.

Are the television producer and distributor types anxiously trying to figure out a solution to their dispute – which caused the loss of Tribune Co.-owned television stations on DirecTV all across the country as of Sunday. On Monday, the fight escalated with a complaint filed with the FCC by DirecTV against Tribune.

Or are the two sides being juvenile and giving each other their best attempt at the “Evil Eye” to try to get the other side to break? My gut instinct (I don’t have any inside info) is that the latter is more likely.

WHICH IS WHY this is about greed on both sides – even though from what I can detect from reading assorted website comment sections, most people are all-too-eager to blame Mother Tribune for this.

Which isn’t the most rational of thoughts.

Because I actually find myself being disgusted with DirecTV, even though in the interest of disclosure I must say that I have no stake in this issue (I still rely on Comcast to have access to all the channels, which means I’m still getting WGN and the other channels impacted by this move).

This is a matter related to the fees that companies like Comcast or DirecTV pay to the television stations to include their programming amongst their offerings. Although after reading the anonymous Internet commenters, you’d think it was the TV stations paying DirecTV to have themselves included amongst those lineups of hundreds of television stations (many of which we don’t watch).

IN THIS PARTICULAR dispute, Tribune thinks its programming is worth a larger fee. DirecTV thinks it is paying too much already, and likely thinks that having to pay a higher fee will cut into their profit margin.

They’re following that old business adage, “Why pay more than you have to?”

Then again, that is the same attitude that many websites use – they think they’re entitled to use copy as their content for free. What’s going to happen to them when, someday, there is nothing for them to feed off of?

Which is the same mentality that ought to prevail on this issue.

WHAT DO THESE distributors think they’re going to be broadcasting over their systems if there aren’t any channels producing programming for them to carry?

I’m wondering where people think that such shows as “American Idol” and “Glee,” along with those baseball clubs that use Tribune Co. stations to broadcast their games, actually come from?

I always wonder when people will realize that their “entertainment” isn’t free, even if you did pay a significant fee for your television and another charge for the distributor.

That’s just for the connection. The programming is a different matter. Then again, I have always been the type who believed that the television should be free, and your ability to watch anything on it ought to be based on what you’re willing to pay.

THAT MIGHT BE a lesson that television viewers (at least those who rely on DirecTV) will learn in coming days.

And as for the dispute that is wrecking the viewing habits of some individuals, a part of me wants to tell them to go read a book, or go for a walk or do something else with their lives.

Heck, as for those Cubs fans, maybe you should go to the game on Thursday if it is so important to you to see the Nationals start out their season with a victory. For what it’s worth, StubHub.com indicated they still had about 2,000 seats available for that game.

And you’ll even get a refrigerator magnet schedule for the 2012 Cubs season.

  -30-

Does NFL labor dispute really bring an “end of the world, as we know it?”

Personally, the idea of the National Football League not being able to play their 2011 season on account of a labor dispute doesn’t bother me. I never have cared much for the game of football, and my life’s routine does not involve being parked in front of the television every autumn Sunday (along with occasional Mondays).

But I do realize that there are many people who do have that routine as part of their lives, and that the lack of professional football will have an impact.

Could the only "football" played at Soldier Field this year involve the July 23 match between the Chicago Fire and Manchester United?

SO I CAN appreciate the sensibility that went into a Chicago Sun-Times report on Thursday about how the Chicago economy would be devastated (“wallop” was the word the newspaper used in its headline) without the Chicago Bears taking the turf every week.

Bourbonnais, Ill., the town that hosts the Bears’ summer training camp, claims it will lose about $1 million that football fans would have spent in their town when they come to see their sporting idols.

Then, there are all those people who actually work in the stadiums to maintain them and serve food and other items to the people who actually attend games. They sent a letter to the NFL officials and players, urging them to resolve their labor dispute no matter what it takes.

If there are no games, then there’s no need to spend money on the overpriced stadium food. If the fans aren’t dumping their trash all over the stands, then there’s no need for the stadium workers to clean up the mess.

AND THERE CERTAINLY wouldn’t be any need to have people working the souvenir stands selling programs and t-shirts and other items with the official NFL team logos on them.

If anything, that is where the money is to be made. The actual running of a sports franchise only becomes profitable when an owner finds someone new to sell the team to.

All of these people have an interest in the NFL carrying on with their season because it impacts their own bottom line, and I’m not looking to have anyone out of work for any reason.

But I just can’t get into the idea that we face economic devastation if the Bears don’t play out their schedule. It is only eight Sundays/Mondays per year.

THE SUN-TIMES REPORTED that Connie’s Pizza officials were among those signing the letter telling the football players to “get that deal done.” I doubt Connie’s Pizza is going to go bankrupt by not selling their brand at Soldier Field for Bears’ home games.

With their restaurants and their frozen pizza brand selling in grocery stores, the fact that they do stadium concessions is just a sideline. A part-time job, so to speak. It might well be the equivalent of free advertising for their brand name. Every time they have a slice of Connie’s at Soldier Field, they remember the name and become inclined to want to eat it elsewhere (unless they get a particularly bad slice – in which case, it could do more harm).

But aside from that factor, the other thing that gets to me is the fact that people will still be spending money even if there isn’t any football. Life does go on.

It’s not like the time period during which the games take place suddenly disappears.

PEOPLE STILL HAVE to eat. They will spend money on the meals they would consume instead of eating stadium concessions. So someone is going to get an economic boost financially.

There also is the fact that time will still have to be filled. If it means that some people will have to get off their duffs and break away from the television because there’s no game on, maybe it means they will use the time to take care of other items of business in their lives.

Maybe they’ll go shopping, thereby spending money and bolstering someone else’s business.

While I don’t doubt that there are some business interests that will lose out if there are no professional football games, there also could be other business interests that benefit. What my line of logic comes down to is that if the NFL’s lack of play creates a gap, something else will fill it.

SO WILL THE Chicago economy be “wallop”ed without the Bears? Somehow, I think we’ll cope business-wise.

I even think those people who just cannot get enough of the game of football will get their fix on Saturdays from the NCAA version of the game.

Those of you who want to be frustrated by the Bears’ play will simply have to settle for tearing your hair out over the Fighting Illini (whose orange and blue colors were the inspiration for the blue and orange worn by the “Monsters of the Midway”).

Which might be a good thing. Because after all the mediocre-to-bad baseball Chicago sports fans are likely to endure this summer, we probably need a break come September and October.

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