Hide your checkbooks!!!!! Presidential candidates are coming to town

Perhaps we should feel “blessed” this week. The presidential hopefuls are coming to visit us.

OBAMA: He wants cash for his 'birthday'



Not so much because they’re all that concerned about us. It’s just that the campaigns have just over three more months to make it through before the Nov. 6 elections.

THEY NEED MONEY to pay for all those sound systems so we can hear them speak at rallies, and those campaign fliers they want us to see and (most importantly) all those television spots they’re going to air to tell us just how wretched their opponent truly is!

So we’re getting both President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney in town during the next few days, hoping that the cult of personality they can offer will encourage us not only to cast a ballot for them, but also to write out a check for a few hundred dollars.

Got to keep those nasty campaign ads flowing!

Yes, I’m a bit cynical when it comes to these events, which usually get staged as though they are once-in-a-lifetime events that we just have to be present for. History in the making, they want us to believe. The Obama fundraisers to be held this weekend are being billed as local celebrations of the president’s birthday – which was last week.

ALTHOUGH THE REALITY is that this probably won’t even be the last time in this election cycle that the candidates will ask us for our cash.

Barack Obama will have a “Happy Birthday!” if we write him out checks totaling in the millions of dollars so he can let us know how out of touch Romney is with real people.

Just as Romney will be equally pleased if we give him all those checks come Tuesday when he speaks at Acme Industries in suburban Elk Grove Village, then has two downtown fundraisers – one of which will feature manufacturing officials.

ROMNEY: Somebody must pay for nasty ads

They’re the audience who will probably buy into all the Romney rhetoric that Obama is a “subversive” who will undermine everything they like about this country.

THEY’RE CERTAINLY THE only audience that can afford to pay up to $50,000 per ticket to get into Romney events to be held in the city – although it seems that money raised will be shared by the Romney campaign and the Republican National Committee.

After all, the RNC needs money to elect allies for Romney – although I suspect what they really want is a president to be allied with a Congress of their choice. Romney as a rubber stamp.

Not that I think the Obama campaign is any different. Some people will actually get into the Obama manor at the Hyde Park/Kenwood neighborhood border, while friends Marty Nesbitt and Barbara Bowman (the latter is the mother of Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett) also will host events.

It will give us the feel that we’re getting to see the inner circle of the Obama lifestyle – if you can afford the high price of a ticket. Although we're not getting anything on the scale of the fundraiser Obama had Monday night (at the Connecticut -- as in suburban New York City -- home of televison producer Aaron Sorkin, with Catwoman-like visions of Anne Hathaway also present).

IT’S NO WONDER that some candidates who have a conscience feel like they’re “whoring” themselves out to raise money to run the campaigns that maintain their positions within government.

Do you feel the need for this?



Most of us, of course, can’t afford these kind of prices. Not that they’re really missing out on much. All political events tend to have a rehearsed quality about them. So overly staged that they bear little resemblance to reality.

Besides, I find myself very amused by the Obama campaign, which has consistently sent out e-mails to alleged supporters, asking for tiny donations and usually offering up some trinket in return. The most recent one I am aware of offers us a chance to get a genuine car magnet bearing the Obama logo.

Just $10, and it’s all yours. You can drive your car around and show your political allegiance, and three years from now you won’t have a tattered, weather-worn sticker on your bumper to remind us of whom you voted for on Nov. 6.

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EXTRA: “Independence” Day for George Ryan remains July 4, 2013

It seems the dreams of former Gov. George Ryan to get released from prison some time in coming weeks isn’t going to happen.

RYAN: Still waiting for freedom



For a judicial panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday issued a ruling rejecting the claims of Ryan’s attorneys that some of his criminal convictions should be thrown out – reducing the length of his prison term to time served.

INSTEAD, HIS FULL 6 1/2- year prison term remains in place – the one that has him scheduled for release on Independence Day next year. Although come January, he could petition for release from the work camp near the maximum-security prison at Terre Haute, Ind., to a half-way house somewhere closer to home.

It may sound like Ryan has already done the bulk of his prison time, and should be mentally strong enough to get through the just over 10 months of incarceration he still “owes” to the Bureau of Prisons.

This probably was the last-ditch effort for Ryan to get some time knocked off his prison term. While he can (and probably will) appeal Monday’s ruling to the Supreme Court of the United States, that court is not obligated to hear the case.

Even if they do, who’s to say how quickly they’d be able to get around to acting upon it.

SO MUCH FOR the theory that Ryan could get some time knocked off his prison term on the grounds that that he did provide “honest services” during his time as governor – meaning he didn’t deliberately try to rip off the people of Illinois with the actions that ultimately were determined to be criminal by a federal court jury.

Although I stand by my gut feeling when it comes to the whole Ryan affair.

Then-President George W. Bush had a chance to issue him a pardon, and current office-holder Barack Obama has heard similar pleas to show some sympathy for Ryan, including one from now-former Illinois first lady Lura Lynn.

Which it won’t shock me to learn that he will someday grant – after Ryan serves the full prison term. Perhaps a clemency plea will be approved around the year 2014! I really expect he’ll become the Republican equivalent of Dan Rostenkowski.

AND AS FOR the thought that some people might vote against Obama just to prevent him the ability to grant such a request, it’s possible.

Then again, I suspect those people weren’t going to vote for Obama to begin with, and likely are still miffed at Ryan because of his actions that began the process that ultimately did away with the death penalty in Illinois.

Because I will always be convinced THAT is the real reason some people are so ticked off at the Ryan memory that they will never consider forgiveness.

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Call it another Quinn Sunday special. Will anyone listen to pension study?

It seems Gov. Pat Quinn hasn’t forgotten his past tactics to gain attention for himself.

QUINN: An attention jolt?



Quinn, when he held past political posts, was the master of the Sunday press conference. He’d find some issue to get worked up over, then take a stand on Sunday.

BECAUSE OF THE lack of other news activity (except in those occasional weekends where a dozen or so murders would take place in a single two-day time span), he’d make it onto various television newscasts and would get decent play in the Monday morning newspapers.

So Quinn, who is desperate to create the appearance that there’s a chance of resolving the pension funding programs that confront Illinois state government, came out with his own study on Sunday – sending copies all over the state.

One that says the underfunding is so drastic that Illinois will be spending more on pensions by the year 2016 than it will on public education programs – a concept that is offensive if you think about it, and should greatly bother us.

Perhaps that is the strategy. Get the people all worked up so that they start making those telephone calls to their local legislator, so that they feel compelled to do something when the General Assembly returns to Springfield for the one-day session in which they’re supposed to take action to resolve the problem.

BECAUSE IF THAT does not happen, it will be all too likely that the legislators won’t feel the least bit compelled to do anything – other than the Illinois House members who have another bit of business to deal with that day.

Aug. 17 is more likely to be the day that state Rep. Derrick Smith, D-Chicago, got expelled from the Legislature on account of the federal charges he faces for alleged acts of bribery, than it is to be the date on which the pension program was resolved.

Heck, it may be more likely that on Nov. 6, Smith will get re-elected to the Illinois House (he remains on the ballot as the Democratic nominee from a West Side-based legislative district) and there STILL won’t be a solution to the pension program.

So a part of me kind of admires Quinn for trying to jump-start some action on this issue. His Office of Management & Budget put together the study that says required state pension contributions will rise to just over $6 billion, which the governor says would have to come from education funds.

BUT I’D TAKE it more seriously if I thought there were any serious negotiations taking place to come up with a solution that could be voted on by the individual legislators when they show up at the Statehouse the end of next week.

There is speculation that Quinn may ask legislators to vote on a partial reform plan – one that would ignore the problems caused by the pension programs that cover educators and the legislators themselves.

The latter, of course, was always the one pension program that was best funded by state government. Legislators looking out for themselves?

Some may argue that a partial solution is better than nothing. I’d argue that ignoring the most seriously flawed parts of the problem amounts to doing nothing. Particularly when it comes to those schoolteachers.

FOR ALL THOSE school boards across the state are insisting that they’re going to be irrevocably harmed if they have to assume the funding for a portion. At this point, their hollering and screaming has the attention of state legislators much more than the governor.

It is why despite all the rhetoric last spring about how a solution had to be found now or else great harm would be inflicted upon Illinois, nothing happened.

Our legislators don’t feel any real sense of urgency. Theoretically, they know there is a serious problem. But the will to do anything about it just doesn’t exist.

OGILVIE: Setting an example?



Because if there is a political person whose image is coming to their minds these days, it is that of the former Gov. Dick Ogilvie.

HE IS THE governor who in the early 1970s pushed for Illinois’ first state income tax, which ticked off so many voters that it was blamed for his 1972 defeat to Dan Walker.

Ogilvie got punished politically for doing the right thing. None of the incumbent legislators wants to suffer the same fate.

Of course, I’m sure they’d vote for it in an instant if they could be assured that it would be Quinn himself who would draw any potential political fallout come 2014!

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Court quirks; is everybody broke?

When the federal government decides that its law enforcement types want to single you out, it is an expensive proposition.

Which is why I can’t help but see the truth in what was former Cook County Board President Todd Stroger’s initial reaction to learning that his former press spokesman and childhood friend now faces an indictment in U.S. District Court.

ACCORDING TO THE Chicago Sun-Times (but not the Chicago Tribune), the Stroger reaction was to say, “That’s too bad because he’ll have to spend money on lawyers.”

Some people are interpreting that comment as some sort of vacuous remark on the part of Stroger, the younger. While others are going out of their way to stretch out an interpretation that claims it is a virtual admission that he will probably have to spend money on lawyers someday.

I just see it as a truthful statement. It might well be the most honest thing that has come out of a political person’s mouth all week.

For 48-year-old Eugene Mullins is going to find his life turned upside down, now that he has to defend himself against a multi-count indictment along with other people.

IT IS LIKELY that all of them will wind up taking each other down – which is the big reason that federal prosecutors like to have trials with multiple defendants.

The confusion over who did what often makes jurors think that everybody did something wrong, so everybody goes down.

And if any of them had any money to begin with, it invariably gets eaten up by legal expenses and the cost of trying to avoid prison.

I still recall former state Treasurer Jerry Cosentino, who back in the 1990s had his own legal problems and wound up being found guilty. But he managed to avoid a prison term because of his advanced age (which is what William Cellini wishes for these days, but that’s a story for another day).

HE ALSO DIED broke. He lost his house. The only thing that prevented him from being homeless was that his daughter took him in during the final years of his life.

Mullins will soon find himself in a similar situation.

In fact, some already are in that situation even though their criminal proceedings have barely started.

For former Cook County Commissioner Joseph Mario Moreno and former alderman Ambrosio Medrano were in court this week on their own corruption charges.

BUT UNLIKE THE attorneys who seem to feed off of political people facing corruption charges, none of them are swarming around Moreno or Medrano.

Both of them appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Morton Denlow, entered their plea of “not guilty,” then formally said they can’t afford to hire legal representation.

They’re getting the federal equivalent of the public defender – who likely is swamped with so many other cases involving indigent defendants  that it is questionable how high a quality of a legal defense they’ll get.

I’m sure the attorneys who get assigned to these two will do the best they possibly can. But the key to comprehending our legal system at times (as evidenced by O.J. Simpson) is that money does talk!

OF COURSE, PERHAPS it is part of a legal strategy. The two face charges that basically say they enriched themselves with bribes. Yet both are now busted! How criminal could they be if they don’t have any money to show for it?

Particularly in the case of Medrano, who already has done a prison sentence for a previous government corruption case against him. He’s already unique in being a possible repeat offender.

Now, he’s an indigent government official. Medrano has definitely earned his place in the Chicago political history books.

All in all, all of these cases are a sad (as in pathetic, not tragic) saga. Crime, if it really did happen here, truly did not pay!

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Meigs Field (finally) to become park

The remnants of Meigs Field remain in place. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

I used to mock Detroit because of what became of Tiger Stadium.

The ballpark where the Detroit Tigers played for nearly nine decades until 1999 remained in place for another decade.

IT WASN’T UNTIL 2009 that the building finally was torn down. While there are some groups that like to go out and play ball on the old infield, Detroit still doesn’t have any official plans for what to do with the site at Michigan and Trumbull avenues.

Pretty pathetic. Except that I’m not sure Chicago is any better. Just look at the saga of Meigs Field – the air strip that for just over a half-century allowed private airplanes to land their craft within a short cab ride of downtown Chicago.

I’m not here to rehash the politics of how former Mayor Richard M. Daley wanted to shutter the air strip on Northerly Island, and finally overcame the opposition of just about everybody by having bulldozers demolish the runways during one overnight in March 2003.

We still tell jokes about the “X” shaped gouges in the runways – making it dangerous for aircraft to try landing on them.



No more need for control tower on Northerly Island. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda



BUT IF ONE happens to drive (or walk) through the area near Northerly Island, it isn’t blatantly apparent that the air strip is long gone.

The old terminal building is still in place, along with the air traffic control tower. Even though it has been just over nine years since the last aircraft left the airstrip.

I realize that part of the reason nothing was able to be developed on the site were lawsuits that were pending by groups wishing to challenge the city’s ability to shutter an airport overnight – and without getting Federal Aviation Administration permission first.

Although it has been about six years since the last of those lawsuits were resolved.



Tiger Stadium is no more, yet its remnants won't wither away



YET WE STILL sit. It’s like Meigs Field has become Chicago’s version of Tiger Stadium.

Which is why I was intrigued by a Chicago Journal report that says work on revamping Northerly Island could begin come autumn.

The newspaper reported this week that the Chicago Park District (which owns the land) and the Army Corps of Engineers have plans to turn the flat layer of grass into a varied nature preserve with various ecosystems.

Almost like we can take the airstrip desired by business interests because of its proximity to downtown Chicago and turn it into a nature preserve whose biggest benefit is its proximity to downtown.

WITHIN A SHORT cab ride of the skyscrapers, one could see what the Midwest used to be like before all the European settlers arrived just over two centuries ago.

And at only $6.65 million, it probably is one of the cheaper projects undertaken by government – particularly since the bulk of the money will come from federal grants.

This may be one of the most cost-efficient projects the Chicago Park District takes on – especially since it won’t cost them more than $1.5 million in local funds.

Of course, I realize that a project hasn’t begun until work on it actually begins. Who knows what could come up between now and September (when officials supposedly will start looking for a construction company) that could delay the project’s beginning?

EVEN ONCE WORK begins, it could take up to five years before we can seriously think of walking through the nature and assorted grasses native to our region – because officials believe it would take up to five years for the grasses to be fully grown.

There also would be one other benefit to having this project in place – it would bring an end to the talk in some quarters that the best future for Northerly Island is to develop a casino on the lakefront site.

I comprehend that a casino is going to go somewhere in Chicago. I just don’t think the gaudiness of a flashy casino needs to be so close to downtown and the lakefront.

If you need bright lights on the lakefront, go watch that giant Ferris wheel at Navy Pier!

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Some people don’t pay attention

We joke about it all the time. The phrase, “the third rail” is taken to mean instant doom when used in just about any context.

Except when it comes to being taken literally.

BECAUSE I HAVE lost count of the number of stories I have reported in the quarter-century that I have been a reporter-type person that involved someone dying because they came into contact with the rail that provides the electric power that operates the rail cars on the “el.”

Do people think that the third rail kills everybody else but them? Do they think they are invincible?

Or do they think they’re the equivalent of Wile E. Coyote? How many of those anvils did he get conked on the head with throughout the years?

Too many of these stories blend into each other, because the details are so unfamiliar. I recall one instance when I was a reporter for the now-defunct City News Bureau involving a homeless person, whom it seems publicly urinated on an “el” platform and had his urine stream hit the dreaded rail.

THE “BURNS” ON his body were restricted to his fingertips, since the electricity shot up through the urine and into his fingers. Not a pretty image.

Which makes me wonder why people don’t pay attention to all those signs that get posted warning people of the electrical danger of getting too close to the tracks. Let alone the possibility of getting hit by one of those “el” trains.

They certainly were ignored by a man who, early Wednesday, thought he could walk across the tracks to get to the “el” platform on the other side, rather than using the stairs that people are supposed to use to get from one side of the “el” station to the other.

The Chicago Tribune reported that the man in question was at the California Avenue station on the blue line.

AS SOMEONE WHO has used that particular station on those occasions when I have had to cover a story at the Criminal Courts building located just four blocks to the south, it really would have been simpler for him to use the stairs, rather than jump off the platform and try to walk across the tracks to have to climb aboard the other platform.

This particular man saw things differently. Now, he’s no longer with us.

I’m sure his family will wish he had been willing to put a little more thought into his use of the “el.” Although if he was that desperate to save himself a few seconds of time, he probably was capable of doing so many risky things.

Perhaps it was just a matter of time before he perished. What a waste!

BUT THIS MAN, whom police didn’t immediately identify, wasn’t the only one who didn’t seem to think before acting this week.

There also is the story of a Chicago woman who had to go to court Tuesday in suburban Skokie, only to find herself being arrested and hit with more criminal charges after her court appearance.

For it seems this woman had a young child and two dogs with her. She knew she couldn’t really bring them into the courthouse.

So, she chose to leave them in the car, sitting and waiting while she made her court appearance. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that she now faces charges of endangerment of a child and animal abandonment.

PERHAPS SHE CRACKED open the car windows to provide a little relief. But officials pointed out that the temperatures got into the 80s on Tuesday and that the kid and dogs were in the car for more than an hour – although the woman told the county sheriff’s police she lost track of how long she was in court.

Which makes no sense to me. Anybody appearing in court ought to realize how indefinite the process could be.

One could get lucky and be the first or second person on a court call. Or they could be the last. It’s not an experience for people in a hurry.

Her behavior kind of reminds me of a guy I once saw arguing with a sheriff’s deputy at the Criminal Courts building. He wanted to be able to walk up to the court clerk, immediately get a new court date, then leave.

BECAUSE HE HAD left his car parked right on California Avenue in front of the courthouse, not realizing he’d have to wait his turn on the court call like everybody else.

Yet another person who thinks the rules of life don’t apply to them.

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Quinn wants ban on assault weapons, willing to play nasty like opponents

It’s actually one of the oldest dirty tricks in the Illinois Statehouse playbook.

QUINN: How badly does gov want ban?

Take some concept that you want but that others despise, and amend it onto an already-existing bill whose sponsor is someone who particularly hates your idea.

TECHNICALLY, YOU’VE TURNED him into the sponsor for your idea, and if your opponent wants to get what he wants, he has to be willing to allow your idea to go through as well.

Either that, or else be prepared to watch as everything gets shot down big time!

That is what Gov. Pat Quinn will be doing in coming weeks with the General Assembly as he tries to get them to approve the concept of a ban on the sale of assault weapons all across Illinois.

That is an idea that many people in the rural parts of the state will vehemently oppose because they will view it as a “Chicago idea” being imposed, and they have been conned into thinking that such a restriction on high-powered weapons designed for combat are somehow essential to the hunter out looking for game either for food, or for sport.

SPECIFICALLY, QUINN ON Tuesday held an event at Fulton’s, 315 N. LaSalle St., with suburban Orland Park police Chief Tim McCarthy (who himself once tried running for Illinois secretary of state, but seems to now be content to be known as the police chief who was once the Secret Service agent who took a bullet for then-President Ronald Reagan).

Quinn and McCarthy talked about how it makes so much sense to reduce the level of violence to get the high-powered weapons off the street, particularly when they carry the magazines that let them fire off so many rounds of ammunition at once.

But Quinn knows any bill that deals with this issue straight-forward will get (bad pun intended) shot down.

LEUCHTEFELD: How angered is he?



It will become one of those issues in which suburban Republicans will band together with rural legislators of both parties to create a “drop dead” stance toward Chicago. It happens once or twice every legislative session – usually when firearms are the issue.

THAT IS WHAT caused Quinn to rely on the old trick.

Because rather than come up with his own bill, he gave an amendatory veto to a bill by state Sen. Dave Leuchtefeld, R-Okawville, that relates to restrictions on ammunition sales for people who make their purchases from out-of-state companies.

The change that Quinn wants to make to the bill is to add on the ban – making it a much larger-scale measure than Leuchtefeld ever intended. It also makes Leuchtefeld the sponsor of a bill that would effectively ban assault weapons – a concept he has long been an outspoken critic of.

Personally, I expect that Leuchtefeld will now actively work against his own bill. He will want to ensure its defeat when it is considered again by the General Assembly during the veto session in November.

SOME WILL SAY that Quinn is being short-sighted because this tactic will create enemies among Leuchtefeld and his allies for putting them in the middle of such a stunt.

Although that really isn’t true, because those Leuchtefeld allies already are some of Quinn’s biggest critics. They were going to find reasons to bash the governor no matter what.

The fact that Quinn seems to realize that some people just cannot be worked with in the governmental process is encouraging. In fact, it is a lesson that Barack Obama seems to be slow to learn at the federal level.

Perhaps Quinn needs to school Obama on the ways of government?

SO YES, IT is true that the actions of Quinn on Tuesday weren’t done with the intent of building support for an assault weapons ban. I suspect Quinn knows he’s going into a headlong fight on this issue.

It allows him to feed off the amount of national attention being paid to firearms for at least a few more days (until the nation gets bored with the story) because of the movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colo.

For every person who despises Quinn because he’s a Chicago-oriented guy (and can’t get over the fact that the rural-oriented guy they preferred lost the last election), this may enable him to gain a few more supporters from the rest of the electorate.

If anything, it is meant to remind the people who should be Quinn’s allies but are largely apathetic about him just who will really come down on their side. It sure isn’t the Quinn critics!

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