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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Can Lightfoot, Preckwinkle connect? Or will the women be political rivals!

It was an intriguing political theory put forth by some – the notion that a Lightfoot political victory for mayor benefits African-American political empowerment by boosting the number of black people in the top government positions.

Lightfoot gets 5th floor office suite; Preckwinkle stays put in her half of city/county municipal building.. Photo by Gregory Tejeda

The way it was described by some, there were those people who wanted Toni Preckwinkle to not bother running for anything in this election cycle.

SHE WAS SUPPOSED to accept the Cook County Board presidency that she was re-elected to back in November – thereby leaving the mayoral post open for another black person to hold. Chicago’s local government structure would literally have its two highest-ranking positions held by African-Americans.

But that didn’t happen, as Preckwinkle insisted on running for mayor. Which creates the potentially awkward position of Preckwinkle and Lightfoot fighting it out for who is the more prominent black woman in our local politics.

Considering that Preckwinkle also holds the post of Cook County Democratic chairwoman, it means that Toni will be in a position where she could theoretically make life difficult for Lori Lightfoot.

She could decide to use the political party structure to thwart a “Mayor Lightfoot” from being able to accomplish much of anything – if she so wishes. Although admittedly, some people will dismiss her as petty and ignorant if she behaves that way,

The mayor 'elect' for a month

IS THIS WHAT is destined to happen, now that Election Day has come and gone – Lori Lightfoot having managed to come sweeping in and usurping the niche that Preckwinkle had planned on playing this cycle?

That of the “good government” type who engages in high-minded talk about the betterment of our society. Instead of the niche that Lightfoot wound up tagging Preckwinkle with – that of a political hack!

The question essentially becomes whether or not Preckwinkle and Lightfoot can “play nice” with each other and figure out ways in which the two can co-exist within the Chicago political structure for the betterment of our city.

Remains as 'mayor' of Cook County

Or are we destined to have the next three-and-a-half years become a period in which the Preckwinkle/Lightfoot rivalry takes on ugly overtones. Will Preckwinkle decide she needs to show us just how big a political “Boss!” she can be.

HERE’S ACTUALLY THE intriguing question, for those people who want to view this now-complete election cycle as one for the betterment of African-American political interests in Chicago.

Would those interests have been boosted more by having both a black mayor and black county board president? Or would they have been boosted had Preckwinkle prevailed and become the first person since Richard J. Daley himself to serve as both mayor and county Democratic chairman?

Would an all-powerful Preckwinkle have been a nice prize for black political interests? Or was it sexism that wound up making some people think that the two positions were simply too much power to put in the hands of a lone woman. Along with the notion that a “Mayor Preckwinkle” also would have created the chance for a “Cook County Board President John Daley” – a notion some black activists would find abhorrent.

How different scenario could be with Wilson win

Keep in mind that back when black political operatives were suggesting that Preckwinkle defer to another black candidate for mayor, the likely favorite was Willie Wilson. Considering how she managed to qualify for the Tuesday run-off while Wilson fell short by merely finishing fourth in the 14-candidate field, it’s not surprising she felt no need to defer to him.

THE RESULT OF all this political scheming is that we now have a mayor-elect who doesn’t come from the current political set-up. Lightfoot has been a corporate attorney and a federal prosecutor, in addition to a one-time member of the Police Accountability Task Force.

Daley remains as county finance chair

In short, the kind of person who might arouse suspicion from incumbent politicos.

But keep in mind that several people bearing the polical label of “Democratic Socialists” managed to get themselves elected to the City Council. There’s going to be an assortment of aldermen anxious to assert the fact that the city technically has a “weak mayor” system of government.

Lightfoot may get the title of “mayor,” but there will be many individuals anxious to tell her just how little she can do while in office. We’ll have to wait and see whether Preckwinkle will be their leader?

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What kind of ‘first’ are we going to see come the April 2 run-off election?

It’s the angle we’re being played over and over again with regards to Chicago’s municipal elections; the Second City is going to get a black woman elected as our mayor – regardless of who manages to prevail in the April 2 run-off.

The way we'll remember Tuesday. Photo by Gregory Tejeda

It’s true! Both Lori Lightfoot and Toni Preckwinkle, who came in first and second amongst the 14 candidates running for mayor on Tuesday, qualify as African-Americans of the female persuasion.

WE’VE NEVER HAD that particular combination amongst our city’s mayors. Although we’ve had two black men as mayors and one woman, so I’m sure there will be some people who claim it’s wrong to make a big deal out of this particular mixture.

Of course, it’s very likely that people expressing this attitude are of the belief that picking the “best qualified” person to be mayor invariably means going with a white man.

For all I know, the people most bothered by the ongoing emphasis about a black woman being elected are the ones who also are pointing out how William Daley (with his 14.69 percent, third place finish) would have actually finished first if the 7.3 percent of the vote cast for Jerry Joyce had actually gone to Bill.

We’d have the likelihood of Daley III as mayor, with Preckwinkle reduced to third and the constant speculation about how it was her ties to embattled alderman Edward M. Burke who took her down to mayoral defeat.

I KNOW SOME are getting excited about the prospects of having a black person in the mayor’s office at City Hall. Some even like the notion of Lightfoot being lesbian and in a gay marriage. Something for everyone to pick from when they go about making a choice for mayor in the run-off election.

Did Joyce decide electoral outcome in unintended way?

But I have to admit, I think the fact that they’re women plays more of a factor into determining the strengths of each candidate.

Because in looking at the city ward maps that detail which candidates did best in each ward, I couldn’t help but notice the strong resemblance between the voter support in majority-black wards that existed back in the days of Harold Washington and that exists now for the millionaire black candidate Willie Wilson.

I don’t doubt that people who made their choice Tuesday for a mayor based on the idea of having a black person in the mayor’s office ultimately decided against either Lightfoot or Preckwinkle and were amongst the 10.77 percent who liked the idea of Wilson’s charitable cash hand-outs to the less-fortunate.

WHILE MUCH OF Lightfoot’s support seems to come in the wards that comprise the north lakefront. With Preckwinkle being predominant in the south lakefront wards.

Could this come down to something of a baseball-themed election run-off? With Lori getting the backing of Cubs fans, with Toni getting the preference of Chicagoans who realize that “real” baseball is played by the White Sox?

How weak was Latino vote? Mendoza lost … 

It might well be that the historical figure we ought to be paying attention to is that of Jane Byrne – who served her one term as mayor from 1979-83 and who was the woman who campaigned on the idea that she was going to smash “the Machine,” but wound up making her accommodations with it in order to survive politically.

Which could mean that this election cycle will most likely be decided by those individuals who went into Tuesday’s voting casting ballots for either Daley or Joyce. In short, the people who probably have their hang-ups about what is happening.

WILL THIS ELECTION wind up being decided by how many of THOSE people decide they can’t bring themselves to vote for either Lightfoot or Preckwinkle? Thereby allowing their existing support to remain significant?

… but Burke didn't

Or will this really become an election cycle decided by people casting their ballots while pinching their noses shut at the very thought of what they’re doing?

Personally, I’m somewhat saddened by the 9.02 percent voter support that Susana Mendoza’s mayoral bid received. If anything, I’d consider a “first Latina” mayor a more significant achievement than the one we’re going to get. But that will have to be a goal for a future election cycle, since we're still in an era where Mendoza couldn't win -- but Ed Burke as alderman could with 53.8 percent voter support in a ward that is about 80 percent Latino.

And I’m also amused by the 6.23 percent support achieved by candidate Gery Chico – with much of it crammed into the 10^th Ward (my own birthplace and home of many of my cousins and other relatives); making it the lone ward in Chicago that thought the one-time Chicago Education Board President would make a fit mayor for our city.

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What were the lessons learned from Anita Hill with regards to Kavanaugh?

I still remember the moment of the “pubic hair on my coke.”

KAVANAUGH: Purely partisan politics?

As in listening to a radio broadcast of the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, when his former colleague Anita Hill recalled a moment of the two of them together when Thomas made his little quip to her.

MY COLLEAGUES AND I couldn’t quite believe anybody could be that lame in thinking such a line would be humorous. Or that Thomas could actually think that such talk would make him appealing to women.

But it really happened, the Senate eventually confirmed Thomas to his appointment that he still holds nearly 30 years later, and I’m sure there are political people out there who think the lesson learned from the whole “Thomas affair” is that such allegations are outlandish and best ignored.

Because, hey, we’ve had a misogynistic sort on the Supreme Court for all these years now, and it hasn’t brought an end to the Republic. Similar to how I’m sure they’re also thinking that it doesn’t matter what President Donald Trump (the man who supposedly thinks the way to appeal to women is to “grab ‘em by the pussy”) may have done in his life.

It only matters when Bill Clinton does it, because he has partisan leanings they are directly opposed to. Taking him down politically is the whole purpose, along with destroying anybody who might be remotely like him in any way.

GORSUCH: Does he need Trump allies on ct?

ALL THESE THOUGHTS have been popping into my head a lot with the hearings taking place concerning the political fate of Brett Kavanaugh. He’s the man whom Trump wants to put on the Supreme Court of the United States – in large part because of a belief he’ll shift the partisan leanings of the court sufficiently enough that the ideologues can start making good on their more-than-four-decade-old desire to do away with the 1973 ruling that made abortion a legitimate medical procedure.

So to try to take him down, we’ve learned about the woman who says that back when she was 17 (and Kavanaugh also was a teenager), he tried to molest her. She had to fight him off.

As if that isn’t sufficient, we’re now learning of another woman who remembers back to her freshman year of college in the mid-1980s when she says fellow student Kavanaugh used a college party to expose himself and try to get her to touch his genitals.

GARLAND: Some still bitter he's not on ct?

We actually have some people making the claim of, “How many women have to come forth before we see Trump’s appointee as unfit for such a position?”

ALTHOUGH I ALSO don’t doubt that Trump-types will never make such an concession – and not only because they just don’t care what these women say Kavanaugh did to them.

It’s all about the fact that Trump himself wants to be able to reform the Supreme Court in his own image, and needs as many people of his partisan persuasion to be appointed to the high court.

He has the one appointment he got because the Senate successfully managed to keep former President Barack Obama from filling the vacancy caused by the death of Antonin Scalia – an act that some find disgraceful. Although I’m sure the ideologues think the real disgrace is that Obama got to make two other appointments – and we now have Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan in life-time legal posts.

Now, the conservative strategy is to ensure that Sotomayor and Kagan ultimately become isolated – and we get a whole slew of Supreme Court rulings of the future that come down to 7-2 votes. Which could happen if Trump is the one who gets to pick a replacement someday for 85-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

WHILE THE OPPOSITION will do what it can to thwart Kavanaugh – and theoretically any other opening there might be on the Supreme Court. Perhaps some think they can literally take back the high court seat they want to believe should be held by Merrick Garland (the man Obama tried to pick for the court, but couldn’t).

THOMAS: Does he need companion?

The shame of all this is that the women themselves become a sideshow. The reality of what happened to them all those years ago becomes irrelevant – to the point where back in 2010, Virginia Thomas (Clarence’s spouse) had the nerve to publicly demand that Hill apologize for letting the world know about his awkward-bordering-on-tacky sense of humor

Are we going to get similar demands in the future of the women who now are coming forth to tell their stories of back when they knew Brett Kavanaugh?

While it may be true that his behavior as a young man wasn’t much different from other males, it really doesn’t excuse him. And the fact that we already have Thomas on the high court doesn’t mean we need to have another boor to keep him company!

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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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EXTRA: Lingering since my high school days, ERA gets approval. Or is it just Illinois asserting its “blue” nature?

Politics and government from back in the days when I was a high schooler – Ronald Reagan and Harold Washington became, respectively, president and Chicago mayor. Adlai Stevenson III gave up his U.S. Senate seat and came, oh so close, to becoming Illinois governor.

Illinois history? Or state remaining solidly blue?

And people seriously quarreled over the Equal Rights Amendment, which never became a reality in large part because Illinois failed to act to ratify it.

NOW, WE ADVANCE three-and-a-half decades to the present day, where there are those who are going about saying Illinois finally got off its collective behind and voted to ratify the constitutional amendment that says a person’s right to equal treatment should not be limited by their gender.

WASHINGTON: A mayoral dream for many

For the Illinois House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to approve the amendment – making Illinois the 37^th state to do so. Get 38 states to go along, and you have a change to the U.S. Constitution!

Yet I’m not convinced that Illinois’ action means much of anything – except showing that Illinois is NOT among the states where conservative ideologues prevail on social issues.

I actually think there’s a better chance that the head cheerleader of my high school days will suddenly pop back into my life and throw herself at me, than that Illinois’ action actually means the Equal Rights Amendment is now a part of law. And yes, I realize that's a very un-ERA type of thought to have.

IT ALL COMES back to the notion that there is a time limit on considering constitutional amendments, and the issue of the ERA far exceeded that limit.

REAGAN: The far-right fantasy

Which was March 22 1979 – although Congress voted to extend it to June 30, 1982. It still failed to get the 38 states for ratification – with Illinois’ refusal to consider the measure considered by some the move that killed the ERA.

I know of some political people who, to this day, still want to blame then-Illinois House Speaker George Ryan for the ERA’s failure and think that act is more heinous than his behavior later as secretary of state and governor that got him a six-year prison term.

So I’m not sure of the significance of the 72-45 vote the Illinois House took Wednesday, with some people who might have been sympathetic to the ERA’s goals voting “no” because they considered it a pointless action.

STEVENSON: Came so close to being gov.

I KNOW THAT from my standpoint, the General Assembly had better come up with a state budget for the upcoming fiscal year – an act it has not been able to do in any of the past three years.

If the Illinois House couldn’t sign off on a budget (which does impact state government’s daily activity) before adjourning Thursday night for the summer months but managed to find time to deal with the abstraction that the ERA has become, then there are going to be those who question political priorities.

And yes, I realize that government officials are capable (or at least they’re supposed to be) of addressing multiple issues.

But anybody who’s acting as though the Illinois House made history on Wednesday, they’re living in the past. Wednesday’s vote would have been of great historic significance for Illinois had it been done back when I was a high school junior – and not at a time when I have a nephew finishing up his high school days.

SCHLAFLY: ERA opponent rolling over in grave?

PARTICULARLY SINCE THE Equal Rights Amendment is such a simple, declarative sentence that says all people ought to be treated equal – one whose approval should not have been any kind of controversy.

All that talk by critics about how it means the genders will have to share public bathrooms is just a bunch of bunk. Which remains all these years later among the most absurd argument I’ve ever heard made against an issue.

People opposing the Equal Rights Amendment back then and still today? It says more about your hang-ups in life than anything wrong with the concept itself.

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EXTRA: Were Chicago Bears ahead of pack in doing away with Honey Bears?

Reading the reports of the Washington Redskins and the stink the team is in with regards to the way they used their cheerleading dance squad almost makes me wonder if Virginia McCaskey, the daughter of Chicago Bears founder George Halas, was on to something.

Has it really been 32 years since the Honey Bears last danced?

McCaskey was the woman whose action right after her Bears actually managed to win a Super Bowl (remember 1986?) was to abolish the Honey Bears.

THAT WAS THE dance team that existed from the mid-1970s until the end of the 1985 season. The Honey Bears’ last performance literally was in New Orleans at the Superdome while the Bears beat up on New England 46-10.

In doing away with the Honey Bears, she made comments about how she found the whole image of hot pants-clad dancers jiggling their curves about to be inappropriate, and how the Bears would never again have such a dance team so long as she remained a part of the team’s management.

Some three decades later, McCaskey remains with us. At 95, who’s to say what will happen.

Now I know some people act as though the lack of an official dance team to entertain the fans (and appease their libido) is somehow a disgrace. I’ve heard some try to claim that the Bears are cursed because of the demise of the Honey Bears – and that (rather than lack of athletic talent) is the reason the Bears are now 32 years, and counting, without another Super Bowl championship.

BUT COULD VIRGINIA have been on to something in thinking that the old-timers like her father who created professional football would never have saw the need for something like the leerleaders (that’s what they really are) whom many teams feel compelled to have?

If anything, it was just a matter of time before someone got caught up in the Redskins’ circumstances.

For those who haven’t paid attention, the New York Times reported about how the Redskins basically used their dance squad in ways that hardly differ from those exotic dancers who work in those seedy nightclubs.

It seems that during a 2013 trip to Costa Rica, the dancers posed topless during a photo shoot for a calendar, and it seems the team offered certain male fans the perk of being present.

THE LADIES ALSO were required to be escorts at a nightclub – serving as “dates” for certain men. An act that bears some similarity to what professional escorts do – and what can get them in trouble with police who consider it one step up from prostitution.

You’d think that Washington would feel some desire to maintain a low profile, what with all the stink they arouse from the fact that they insist on keeping the team nickname “Redskins.”

Now, they’re the team that pimps out its dancers.

Which can’t help but make one wonder if “da Bears” are spared much grief by being one of the few professional football teams (including such other ‘old school’ teams like the Green Bay Packers and the New York Giants) to do without the sideline routines.

  -30-

Some political issues like ERA just won’t die, even after they’re long dead

When it comes to conservative political people in Illinois, they long have thought of their ability to kill off the Equal Rights Amendment as one of their major accomplishments.

A past image for an antique amendment

And it seems they’re not about to give up that “victory,” no matter how ridiculous they make themselves look in the process.

FOR THOSE OF you so young that you don’t have a clue about anything that came before your time, the Equal Rights Amendment was an effort that tried to put in the Constitution to protect women from discrimination.

It failed back in 1982 when enough state Legislatures failed to ratify the amendment. The Illinois Legislature was among those that failed to act, and some say it was Illinois’ failure to approve that inspired other holdouts to stubbornly act out as well.

But there are some legal scholars who have argued that the 1982 deadline for ratification is not as rock solid as political people always presumed it was. Which is what caused the Illinois Senate this week to take a vote this week.

The Democratic majority that now controls the Illinois Senate voted to approve, and the Illinois House of Representatives likely will take a vote in coming weeks. Even though it is likely the 1982 deadline remains in place, and the action becomes one of pure symbolism.

MEANING IT’S NOT likely to make a difference. We’re not likely to get the Equal Rights Amendment as a part of the Constitution any time in the near future.

Will we get future protest marches like this?

But that’s not stopping the ideologue-inclined from getting all bent out of shape.

Officials with the political action committees of the Federation for Right to Life, Illinois Citizens for Life, Lake County Life, Illinois – Stop ERA, Illinois Family Action and the Concerned Christian Americans signed off on a letter informing legislators that they’ll lose out on the endorsements and possible money that the activist groups might otherwise provide to them as they seek re-election come Nov. 6.

They’re going to make the demise of the Equal Rights Amendment – which is what the late Phyllis Schlafly used to gain her national reputation – their big issue.

Schlafly 'made her bones' on Illinois ERA failure

I KNOW SOME people are shocked to think that anybody in these days would vote against the Equal Rights Amendment. Although considering that ERA opposition always had a tinge of nonsense attached to it, nothing should be shocking.

How nonsensical?

I remember back when the issue was alive for real, opponents would toss out the argument that the Equal Rights Amendment would mean separate restrooms would no longer be acceptable for men and women and that women could face conscription into the military.

You can’t really use those arguments anymore because we have unisex bathrooms and women are a part of the modern military.

NOW, THE ARGUMENT being used is that equal rights for all would undermine local laws that restrict abortion access. Which means that ERA opponents must be the knuckleheaded-types who want to talk of criminal punishment for women when the day comes they can overturn the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that upheld abortion rights for women.

What is humorous about this is that the actual Equal Rights Amendment merely says, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied, or abridged, by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” That’s all!

The past's offensive image has largely come true

Where anyone ever read anything about unisex bathrooms into that is beyond me. Just as I don’t see anything in there about abortion – unless you really think it proper to harass pregnant women.

But like I wrote, the death of the ERA is a political victory the “right” can claim. And they’re not going to let any smart-alecked dames even think about taking it away – that’s the pathetic way some of us still think in this Age of Trump.

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EXTRA: Campaigning against Rauner, the first of many gubernatorial pot shots

Al Riley isn’t seeking re-election to the Illinois House of Representatives’ post he has held since 2007, and he really doesn’t have any competition for the township supervisor post he will continue to hold in south suburban Cook County.

Yet that doesn’t mean Riley, of suburban Olympia Fields, isn’t actively on the campaign trail and doing his part to clog up mail boxes with political propaganda meant to influence the way people vote come the March 20 primary elections.

THE LEGISLATOR WHO will cease to be a member of the General Assembly come January of 2019 is sending out mailers that go straight on the attack against Gov. Bruce Rauner.

From the dreary-looking photographs of women with cancer and the headline advising us that Rauner’s budget cuts have harmed their health, to the simple, declarative statement saying that some 12,000 women no longer can get breast cancer screenings because of the governor, it seems that Riley wants to be a faithful Democrat.

Doing his part to ensure that Illinois isn’t subjected to “four more years” of “Gov. Rauner.”

RILEY: Soon to move on, yet still keeping busy

I’m sure that many Democratic Party officials will be doing their part in coming weeks and months to take pot-shots at Rauner to undermine his chances of an Election Day success story.

WHICH MIGHT SEEM to some as though Rauner is being picked on from all sides.

Then again, he’s the $50 million-plus man with all the money to spend on himself and to try to buy allies in the General Assembly to undermine the efforts by Democratic legislative majorities that have been the only reason Rauner hasn’t run roughshod over their interests.

And is the guy who is capable of making possible Democratic gubernatorial nominee J.B. Pritzker seem like a pauper, by comparison!

So I’m sure this Riley shot is just the first of many we’re all going to see between now and Nov. 6. Which makes me wonder, where’s the Tylenol bottle? It’s all giving me a headache!

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