Will Latinos gain in small City Council?

I’m not convinced that Latino political empowerment will really be advanced by cutting the size of the City Council.

SOLIS: Is fewer better?



That is the line of logic being offered up by 25^th Ward Alderman Danny Solis these days, who says that if all the existing boundaries have to be scrapped and we start over then it becomes easier to give Latinos a “fair” share.

WITH “FAIR” BEING dictated by the concept of Chicago’s “official” population of 2.7 million people being 33 percent black, 32 percent white and 29 percent Latino (with the remaining 6 percent being mostly Asian). He says it could result in eight white wards, eight black wards, seven Latino wards and two other wards that could flop around from ethnicity to ethnicity.

I wonder if it just increases the potential for gerrymandering because multiple neighborhoods would have to be combined to create 25 wards (there are roughly 120 neighborhoods and sub-neighborhoods within Chicago).

But the move also is being portrayed by some people as Latinos “calling the bluff” of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who has said that he will push for a reduction in the size of the City Council if aldermen can’t get their act together and agree on new boundaries for the existing 50 wards.

Those wanting to know more need to check out this weblog’s sister site, The South Chicagoan, for more details.

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A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): $75 now the price for getting cab sick?

I sympathize with the thought of a taxicab driver who has to take time out from what could be a busy night picking up passengers and making money to clean up a mess caused by a passenger who gets sick during the ride.

I say so because I remember one incident about two decades ago when I was that passenger.

MY STOMACH WAS feeling a bit queasy, but I thought I could keep it in until I got to a commuter train station in downtown Chicago. But instead of being the guy who threw up in a men’s room toilet, I wound up doing it within a half block of the train station, in the back seat of a cab.

I recall giving the driver an extra $20, in addition to paying the fare. It seemed the least I could do.

So imagine my reaction to learning that the cab drivers are seeking increases in various fares and fees associated with riding a cab – and one of the changes they want made is the right to demand $75 from anyone who gets sick inside the cab.

Fat chance they’ll actually be able to collect it. Or will it now become a police-worthy offense (as though they’re not busy enough already) to puke one’s guts up in the back seat of a cab?

I RECALL THAT night so long ago that I gave him $20 because it was all the cash I had on hand. Are cab drivers now going to start screening their potential passengers based on who looks like they might be carrying enough spare cash on hand that they could afford $75 if they become ill?

Or will they now “profile” people to avoid those individuals whom they think will become ill? Considering that we encourage people who become intoxicated to avoid driving and rely on a taxicab instead, it seems like a contradictory move.

Not that I’m excusing my behavior that night (as I recall, it was a night at the Billy Goat Tavern after a day’s work at the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago, and I took a cab to a train station because I was feeling too queasy to just walk). But there has to be something more practical than this proposal – which is something the City Council will get to consider in coming weeks.

What other events are occurring on the southwestern shores of Lake Michigan on this second day of Hanukkah?

THIS IS WALSH’S BIG ISSUE?:  Rep. Joe Walsh, R-Ill., is grossly offended that he’s not allowed to use his official Congressional newsletter to wish people a Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah.

RUSCITTI: The anti-Walsh?



The House rules that have been in place since the days when Congress was preoccupied with Watergate don’t want taxpayer dollars being used to promote anyone’s religion in particular. So they tell members of Congress to use general holiday greetings.

That has Walsh outraged, although I suspect much of his outrage is for show to get the kind of people who want to perceive a culture war against themselves to think of himself as the guy they should consider voting for come March 20, and again on Nov. 6.

I’m sure Walsh thinks he’s preparing for a general election fight between the winner of Raja Krishnamoorthi/Tammy Duckworth in the Democratic primary for the vacant congressional seat. Personally, I’d get a kick out of seeing GOP primary opponent Darlene Ruscitti (the regional superintendent of schools for DuPage County) beat Walsh, just so we could be spared his ideological nonsense come the general election.

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION ’12 – WHO DO WE HATE MORE?: It really seems that people are preparing to vote against someone for president in next year’s election cycle.

OBAMA: For, or against?

I couldn’t help but notice the poll released Tuesday by the Gallup Organization. In hypothetical elections of Barack Obama against Mitt Romney, and against Newt Gingrich, Obama wins 50 percent to 48 percent – which is so close that it amounts to a statistical tie.

But Gallup claims many people say they’re voting against the opponent, rather than for the person they picked. Only 18 percent of those surveyed picked the Republican because they want either Romney or Gingrich to be president. By comparison, only 39 percent picked Obama over Romney because they want Obama. The same goes for the 34 percent who picked Obama over Gingrich.

That makes 30 percent (29 percent if it’s Gingrich) who are voting AGAINST Obama, with 11 percent (15 percent if it’s Gingrich) voting against the GOP. What do we get from an Obama/Gingrich battle? 44 percent of the people voting for the candidate they can’t stand.

Only in America!

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Do we really like “harebrained” ex-guv more than nation likes Congress?

It seems we do like Rod Blagojevich more than Congress, if one wants to believe the train of thought offered up by a pair of polls.

Who do we like more? Rod ...



One of those polls is the one the Chicago Tribune came up with that had the former Illinois governor with a 13 percent approval rating in those weeks just before he became an indicted public official on the verge of being impeached.

THAT “13 PERCENT” figure is just so ridiculously low that it added to the comic relief we all got from the Blagojevich image. We could laugh at him for his ridiculous hair, his nasally voice and his over-the-top manlove for Elvis Presley.

So how can we not think equally absurd thoughts about our members of Congress, who were the focus of a new poll released this week by the Gallup Organization?

11 percent.

That’s how many of the people surveyed by Gallup approve of the job that Congress is doing – the same Congress that includes the House of Representatives that as I write this commentary is preparing to take a knee-jerk “no” vote to the payroll tax cut extension.

ALL BECAUSE THEY want to show they can, as an act of defiance to President Barack Obama. In fact, it seems that too much of the activity actually done by Congress these days is because they want to one-up the president, or don’t want to do anything that he could receive positive credit for.

It would seem that the members of Congress who rejected a two-month extension did so because they want some havoc to occur – because they want to believe the public will “blame” Obama.

... or Congress?



They try treating him like the invisible friend every young child tries to blame whenever things go wrong. Which is probably an appropriate comparison, because this kind of behavior is childish.

And it is the reason why people don’t think much of Congress these days. The Gallup Organization went so far as to say that this 11 percent figure is the lowest ever for Congress, and that the 17 percent that Congress averaged for the year 2011 is also a record-low.

FOR WHAT IT is worth, Gallup on Monday also gave Obama a 42 percent approval rating, and another poll put together for the Washington Post and ABC News had Obama at 49 percent approval – a significant increase from recent months and his highest level since March.

Could it really be that when Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich goes around saying he would ignore the Supreme Court of the United States if it rules in cases in ways that go contrary to his ideological leanings and would also try to abolish courts and impeach judges who follow the law instead of his partisanship, all he does is makes Obama look rational and sane by comparison?

This coming at a time when another Gallup poll shows the Gingrich phenomenon fading, and he is merely tied with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in voter support for the GOP presidential nomination.

So we have the concept of “President Newt” and Congress on the decline and Obama on the rise, although we should all admit that Obama’s backing isn’t that high. It’s just a matter of the American people seeing that maybe these GOP operatives this time around are going to find someone whom we will despise more than the apathy of Obama on certain issues.

THINK ABOUT IT. All those ideologues in Congress who think the “American people” are preparing to “gang up” on Obama and dump him come Nov. 6 should consider that many of us “like” Obama more than we do them.

But it still makes me laugh that Congress has dropped lower than Blagojevich in terms of public perception. Because we all saw on Monday just how low the Blagojevich image has sunk.

His attorneys made an attempt to base a motion requesting a new trial on the fact that the forewoman of his jury is committing disparaging acts when she makes public appearances.

That caused U.S. District Judge James Zagel to not only reject the motion, but to dismiss it as “harebrained” and say they owed the jury forewoman an apology. And most people who commented about the issue on various Internet sites couldn’t help themselves.

WAY TOO MANY insisted that Zagel really meant “hairbrained” – with reference to the Blagojevich “doo” that will have one heck of a time surviving the barbers at whatever prison facility the former Illinois governor winds up being sent to.

Now, in the public’s mind, we have someone we think even less of than Milorod.

Our Congress has sunk too low. Although I still believe that many people approve of their own member of Congress. It’s your member who they think is causing all the problems.

But I wonder if any of the congress members will take this thought into consideration. Blagojevich has become a national punch line.

AT THE RATE they’re going, Congress may soon be even bigger fodder for the late night shows and parodies. And they won’t be able to blame Blagojevich for this fact – because it has been nearly a decade since he served a six-year stint in those “hallowed halls” on Capitol Hill.

The current Congress has achieved this “low” all by themselves.

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War’s over! Where’s all the celebration? Or do we see Part Three forthcoming?

He is going to be restrained by the economy (the federal government can’t afford to do many of the things Obama dreams of) and an ongoing war in Iraq (whether we like it or not, we’re stuck in it. I wouldn’t be surprised if U.S. troops remained there on Inauguration Day in January 2013).

Chicago Argus, Nov. 5, 2008

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Part 3 someday? Image from Indymedia Ireland

Perhaps it goes to show you just how little I know at times.

Because it seems this prediction that I published in this weblog on the “Day After” Election Day in 2008 when Barack Obama woke up realizing he had managed to beat John McCain and become president-elect turned out to be inaccurate.

FOR THIS WEEKEND, the Iraq War that began back in the presidency of George W. Bush officially came to an end. History will record that the last U.S. troops left the country on Sunday, although because of the time difference it was actually late Saturday in Chicago at the moment those troops crossed over the border into Kuwait – the nation whose invasion back in the early 1990s by Saddam Hussein triggered the whole notion that we were “at war” in Iraq.

And just out of a sense of disclosure, I have a cousin, Carlos, who was in the Army back in the late 1980s and early 1990s and wound up spending a year of his service fighting to “liberate” Kuwait.

But back to the present. Weekend news broadcasts were filled with lots of feature stories showing us soldiers in their tan fatigues (the famed “chocolate chips”) saying how pleased they were to know that they survived the war and that it truly is over.

OBAMA: Ended this Iraq war. Who begins the next?

These men likely will tell stories for the rest of their lives about how they were the absolute last U.S. troops to leave the Middle Eastern nation – for now.

BECAUSE I WON’T be surprised if conditions arise in future years that cause our military to think that U.S. troops will have to return. In fact, it may well turn out that what we’re calling the second Iraq War is really just the latest chapter of tensions that have been ongoing in that part of the world for centuries, and will continue for long after this weekend.

It makes me think that the idea of considering this war “over” is a little bit short-sighted. That very mentality was running through my mind back when Obama got elected president in large part by appealing to the people who always despised the notion that U.S. troops were located anywhere in the Middle East.

But for now, I will give Obama some credit (even though I’m sure the ideologues of our society will not want to do so). He brought this military conflict to an end. For now, the body count ceases to rise.

The point I tried to make all those years ago was that anybody who voted for Obama expecting there to be an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops truly was being naïve. I knew all those years ago that a withdrawal from Iraq would take years to complete – and even then only if absolutely nothing went wrong.

THAT IS WHY I implied that the process might still be taking place in January 2013 as Obama either prepares to take a second oath to serve a four-year term as president – or tries to hold back a look of anguish as one of the GOP dreamers actually manages to take that oath while Obama looks on – just before getting the final plane ride on Air Force One that brings him back home to Chicago.

Instead, it seems to be over. All combat troops left Iraq by this weekend, and all U.S. troops are supposed to be out of the country by Dec. 31. The soldiers will be returning home in streams – and we’re likely to see countless accounts of soldiers in fatigues being mobbed by family and friends, along with some cute wife or child at the center of the mix for them.

Yet for the life of me, I’m not sure what was really accomplished by this military action of the past few years. The reports already are cropping up of political “crisis” and tensions arising. I literally won’t be surprised if Iraq War Three crops up in the next decade.

The only real question is whether it will be a “President Obama” who has to start it in a second term, or if it will be some future chief executive who gets the credit/blame for the military mess.

YES, YOU PROBABLY out early from the tone of this commentary that I was never a proponent of this particular “war,” which as far as I was concerned was declared because of the feeling by the most recent President Bush to take on “unfinished business” from the administration of George Bush, the elder.

When George W. Bush got elected president in that mess of political maneuvering that passed for an election cycle in 2000, I knew that circumstances would arise that would be used to justify an Iraq War. Even if no such airplanes had ever struck the World Trade Center or Pentagon some 10 years ago, I believe the end result would have been similar in terms of military involvement in Iraq.

So because I “expected” it, I wasn’t shocked or offended when it occurred. And as far as getting out, it always struck me that the “war” was the equivalent of a “break it and buy it” policy.

We “broke” it by getting involved with military force. I want to believe (in fact, I desperately hope) that we have fixed it well enough to justify calling this military conflict over.

BUT SOMEHOW, I suspect (and fear) that the quickie glue job that we did to repair this symbolic artifact will soon some undone.

Is somebody bound to pick this “artifact” up off the shelf and notice that it is all chipped on the side that we turned toward the wall and face away from the potential customer?

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How legitimate is idea of substance abuse rehabilitation for Blagojevich?

Is former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich really a drunk?

BLAGOJEVICH: Does he have 'a problem?'

Until Friday, writing that sentence likely would have made me susceptible to legal actions, assuming that Blagojevich could scrounge up enough money these days to find an attorney willing to represent him in a libel lawsuit against me.

BUT THAT IS the direction our former governor, who in mid-March becomes an inmate of the federal corrections system (exact location yet to be determined), is going to have to take in coming years.

Which, of course, has many people convinced the whole thing is a scam intended to reduce a 14-year prison sentence (actual time of incarceration 11 years, 10 ½ months) by one year, with another few months spent in a half-way house rather than in a prison facility.

Personally, I’m a little more sympathetic in that I’m willing to trust the judgment of the federal officials who ultimately will review any application by Blagojevich to get into a substance abuse program.

If the Bureau of Prisons believes that Blagojevich has developed a problem with alcohol, I’m not going to doubt them. I would take their word over that of the people on the outside who are now ranting and raging about Blagojevich even considering such an application.

THESE ARE THE people who think it an injustice that Blagojevich got ONLY a 14-year prison sentence, and wish it could have been closer to that nonsensical talk of “natural life” that was bantered about early on. Hence, they don’t want to believe he’s got an alcohol problem.

I’ll also admit that back when I was a reporter-type person at the Illinois Statehouse and Blagojevich was a freshman representative from the Lincoln Square and Ravenswood neighborhoods, I don’t recall Rod being among the “heavy” drinkers of the Illinois Legislature (and there were a few).

So I don’t have any first-hand (or even second-hand) accounts of Blagojevich getting sloppy drunk and tearing up a capital city tavern after-hours.

Now what is motivating this talk of Milorod having a substance abuse problem with alcoholic beverages is the Chicago Sun-Times, where long-time gossip columnist Michael Sneed reported Friday that Blagojevich gets so wound up during the day that he has to drink heavily at night in order to get himself to sleep.

WGN-TV HAS SINCE picked up on the intoxication bandwagon; reporting that Blagojevich drinks to get some sleep.

Their sources went out of their way to say that Blagojevich’s “problem” is limited to liquor – he doesn’t pop pills or use any other substances whose very possession would be a criminal act.

I guess that means Blagojevich is basically a decent person, because alcohol is acceptable whereas drugs would not be. Which is a line of logic I find to be a crock. A substance abuse problem is a substance abuse problem, regardless of the actual substance involved.

If anything, I’m more offended that Blagojevich (if he truly is claiming this, we are relying on a “SneedScoop,” after all) might think that his “problem” for which he is requesting serious treatment is an acceptable one for which he would deserve respect over those inmates whose addictions are to pills.

BUT REGARDLESS, HERE’S hoping that Blagojevich can get whatever form of “help” he needs during his time of incarceration. Because if he doesn’t, then his prison sentence will truly be a waste of time.

Besides, a part of me is inclined to think that if Blagojevich does not have a substance abuse problem right now, he probably will by the time he is finished with his term. Despite the security measures in place, there are too many inmates who manage to spend their time zonked out of their minds on pills or alcohol – even if it is some sort of home-made brew that is more likely to make them sick than relaxed.

Because the oppressive nature of incarceration, even at the minimum-security or work-camp level, is one that few people can handle without being changed emotionally. Many prefer to just go through the experience with a buzz on their brain.

This is the environment that Blagojevich will be entering. It won’t shock me if he will require some sort of treatment down the road – which is when any treatment for alcoholism would come.

HE WOULD HAVE to serve several years of his prison sentence before actually getting the chance to be treated for his drinking problem.

Even if you want to believe that the “problem” is one that didn’t exist until former George Ryan gubernatorial chief of staff Scott Fawell (who used the same tactic to knock time off his own prison sentence for government corruption charges) put it into his head a week ago, you have to admit that a few years in a prison environment will change Blagojevich.

What would happen if we just unleashed Blagojevich back onto society as a 67-year-old alcoholic with no prospects for work to support himself? That situation sounds like it creates more problems than are solved by denying him admission into a substance abuse program.

Because let’s be real. If the currently-55-year-old Rod doesn’t have a drinking problem right now, he may very well have one by then.

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Revenge on India-noplace? Why bother!

Personally, I have always regarded Indianapolis as being the equivalent, municipality-wise, of Peoria or Des Moines, Iowa.

Small cities that may be nice places to visit. But does anybody seriously want to “live” there?



INDIANAPOLIS: A place to send postcards from, not to



SO EXCUSE ME for thinking it a tad ridiculous that some Chicago-area officials are thinking in terms of “revenge” against Indianapolis for having the unmitigated gall to think they could get the Chicago Board of Trade or the Mercantile Exchange to relocate to the Hoosier capital city. Maybe these people also want to target Los Angeles for "stealing" away Playboy magazine?

Crain’s Chicago Business used its website to report about efforts by the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau to create a new sports commission – one of whose duties will be to try to get some of the athletic events that now take place in Indianapolis to move to Chicago.

Snatching away those events that give Indianapolis its occasion bits of national attention when they appear in the datelines of sports stories just sounds so trivial. Heck, I wish our officials would spend as much time trying to draw business interests to Illinois for economic reasons, rather than trying to create a political grudge match between the two states.

If anything, I can’t help but think that such an effort by Illinois does nothing more than reduce our fine state to the level of Indiana – which has had its “Illinoyed” marketing campaign that has tried to cherry-pick assorted Illinois companies into moving to Indiana, based on the idea that Indiana will ask less of them in taxes than Illinois does.

Would an LA magazine highlight a Cubs ballgirl?

OF COURSE, INDIANA also will provide them with less in benefits than Illinois, which to me confirms the old adage, “You get what you pay for.”

Had the commodities exchanges actually relocated from the South Loop to Indianapolis, it would have been a public relations coup for the Hoosier politicos. But it didn’t happen, because our General Assembly eventually got its act together politically and passed those assorted tax breaks giving the exchanges $100 million in financial benefits.

Even though the supporters of the tax breaks argue that all they really did was changed Illinois law to reflect the realities of the 21^st Century where many commodities transactions are done electronically – rather than in the trading pits.

It just would have been too much of a change in the culture of those commodities exchanges to physically relocate their operations to a city whose only day of international significance is the one around Memorial Day weekend when the automobiles race round-and-round the track for a few hours.

THE IDEA THAT we now have to “avenge” ourselves against Indiana is just too ridiculous a concept to take seriously.

Perhaps it is because I was born and raised in the part of Chicago where Indiana isn’t an esoteric concept, but is that smelly industrial area (the oil refineries in Whiting, Ind.?) located just a few blocks to the east.

I look into Indiana and don’t see a thing they truly offer that we don’t already have here in Illinois. In fact, considering the lack of respect that Lake County, Ind., gets from the rest of its state (including the Indianapolis political scene), I often have thought that the best thing that county could do is accept the fact that it is part of metropolitan Chicago and join Illinois.

It makes more sense than those people on the Springfield political scene who would like Chicago to break off into its own state. If we did, we’d be a more significant state than anything offered up by Indiana or the rest of Illinois, particularly because that county (in many ways) IS the most significant part of Indiana. But it’s not going to happen anytime soon, no matter how much ideologues rant and rage in favor of the concept.

I’M ALSO REALISTIC enough to know that there are some of these “events” that Chicago officials want to dream of snatching for our city that aren’t going to come here – in large part because the people who put on those events like the smaller scale of an Indianapolis – where all the out-of-towners can stay in a hotel located within walking distance of the stadium/arena where it is being held.

That is the attraction for the Big Ten to play its end-of-season men’s basketball tournament in Indianapolis, rather than at the United Center.

If those event-goers were interested in doing things other than the specific event, then Chicago could top any municipality. Perhaps we just offer too many distractions, just like those conventions that would rather be held in Orlando, Fla., or Las Vegas, Nev. A place you visit, then return home from.

A time-filling trip to DisneyWorld or a real-life Vegas casino is simpler to comprehend than squiring around Chicago – although the latter would be a more worthwhile use of one’s time AND a more memorable experience.

SO WHILE I’LL wish these Illinois officials some luck in terms of bringing events to Chicago, I don’t think their efforts are essential to prove that the Second City is a more worthwhile place than any other Midwestern municipality.

Because about the only time that Indianapolis ever trumps Chicago is on those occasions when the AAA-level Indianapolis Indians play better-quality baseball than our Chicago Cubs.

Which is all too often!

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EXTRA: Back to “Square One” on Illinois Congressional, Lege districts

So after all these weeks of apprehension that appeals court justices might decide to get themselves involved in the way Illinois political people drew boundaries for congressional and legislative districts, nothing changed.

The panel (which included two GOP types from Indiana to create the illusion that no bias was influencing the decision) ruled Wednesday to reject the claims of GOP politicians who wanted the Democrat-drawn boundaries tossed out in favor of something more sympathetic to their political futures.

THIS COMES JUST a week or so after the same panel rejected the challenges to the legislative district boundaries. It seems the panel saw through the partisan rhetoric where Republican officials were claiming to be more sympathetic to Latino political empowerment than Democratic Party officials were.

So now, unless the Supreme Court of the United States decides it wants to get involved in this issue, we in Illinois have political boundaries that are upheld by an appeals court.

Which also means the fact that the appeals panel forced state Elections Board officials to alter the schedule for filing nominating petitions (in case the congressional boundaries had been found to be unconstitutional) turned out to be a completely unnecessary move.

Congressional candidates could have filed their petitions earlier this month along with legislative candidates, instead of having to wait until a completely-separate period to occur late in December.

SO FOR THOSE people who are now trying to argue about the millions of dollars wasted on this legal appeal, I’d say that the significant dollar figure ought to be how much more money will the Illinois State Board of Elections have to spend because it was forced this time around to maintain two separate, week-long filing periods for candidates?

While the dollar figure may not (when put in perspective) be all that significant, I’d argue it is the principle of the issue at stake.

Extra expense incurred, all because Republicans in Illinois looked at what their colleagues in places like Texas were able to do with reapportionment and strived for a chance to do the same?

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