EXTRA: A 'rap' about the news?

Is this a “first” in the history of the assorted outlets that attempt to report the news in Chicago – a transaction reported in a rap song?

CHANCE: New 'media' baron?

For it seems that Chancellor Bennett, the entertainer known as Chance the Rapper, has bought the rights to resume publication of the one-time website The Chicagoist – which died last year when its owner closed down partially in response to attempts to organize his web site labor with a union.

IT SEEMS THAT New York Public Radio had acquired the rights to the web site, along with similar sites in other cities. They have since been selling them off to local entities with an interest in resuming publication.

In the case of chicagoist.com, they sold the rights to Social Media LLC, a company created by Bennett to try to promote representation of more non-white people within the local media. He actually released (via the Internet) a rap song with lyrics about his new purchase ("I bought the Chicagoist just to run you racist bitches outta business," he sang, along with, "Rahm you done, I expect a resignation"), then a formal statement about his desires to have control over a media voice.

I can’t think of any past media purchase that quite got the word out through such a means.

It will be interesting to see what plans, if any, Bennett has for use of the new website (and its archives) he has acquired. Will it change much? Will it be The Chicagoist of old?

Two North Side-focused media properties now owned …

IT’S JUST THAT it strikes me change will need to occur because the Chicagoist web site always struck me as one put together by people whose view of Chicago focused heavily on those North Side neighborhoods where white people are in abundance – and the idea of people of color usually referred to the assorted ethnic restaurants one could find up there.

I can’t see how that would continue under new ownership. Not that there’s anything wrong with such change – unless the old readers are determined to reject the notion.

… by entities fully aware of 'black' Chicago

I actually have similar thoughts about The Reader, which the Chicago Sun-Times recently sold to the owner of the Chicago Crusader and its sister newspaper, the Gary Crusader. Those publications most definitely try to cover the parts of Chicago where black people are in abundance and other news outlets often ignore.

Whereas the Reader has always been a publication focused extensively on the north lakefront and where many South and West side residents can’t find a copy anywhere near where they live. Change is in the air, and we’ll have to see if we get a better-informed Chicago populace as a result.

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Trump “beating” Lincoln? Well, he wasn’t ever going to take Illinois vote

How over-bloated is the ego of President Donald J. Trump? He’s the guy going around saying he’s the most popular Republican ever – even topping one of the Republican Party’s founders, Abraham Lincoln.

Besmirching the rep of Honest Abe?

Of course, the fact that Trump would say he’s bigger than Honest Abe, so to speak, is predictable. If he really wanted to engage in overbearing egomaniacal rhetoric, he’d claim he’s bigger than Reagan.

EXCEPT THAT THEN, former President Ronald W. Reagan has surviving family members who would immediately rush out to “clean his clock,” so to speak. The Lincoln family line of descendants came to an end several generations ago.

So who’s about to challenge Trump’s nonsensical claim?

For the record, Trump was basing his claim off a poll showing that amongst people inclined to vote Republican, some 90 percent think favorably of The Donald. Which could be true – a recent Gallup Organization poll of Trump’s popularity shows 88 percent of Republicans favor him.

Compared to 37 percent of people who call themselves political independents, and only 9 percent of those who are Democrats. None of this is surprising.

NOT EVEN THE fact that Trump feels compelled to bloat his political significance with this trivial tidbit. Does it really mean much that the people who voted for Trump in the first place support their action of 2016 – or that the people who didn’t want him back then still can’t stand him!

TRUMP: The Man of the Over-bloated Ego

Or that Trump is the kind of guy inclined to believe that only certain people in our society matter. Those who didn’t like Trump in the first place, the hell with them, is probably his honest attitude.

I noticed that CNN felt compelled to do a story about Trump’s claims, saying that just about every Republican who has been president in recent years has had overwhelming favorable approval ratings amongst Republican voters.

And that there is no credible polling data remaining from the 1860 and 1864 election cycles to show us just how popular Lincoln really was amongst the American people.

'Bigger than Reagan' would be a real fight

OF COURSE, CONSIDERING that the election and inauguration of Lincoln as president was so unpopular that it caused officials in 11 southern states to talk of trying to break away and create their own nation (the whole Civil War was about whether such an action was legitimate), it wouldn’t surprise me to learn the noble image of Honest Abe held in Illinois isn’t universal.

Even if Lincoln did ultimately get his image on the penny – and the five-dollar bill. What will Trump ever get; other than his name on a batch of tacky buildings that society as a whole will celebrate when the day comes that they are reduced to rubble!

Considering that many of the kinds of people who now support Trump are the ones who also are determined to look back upon the Civil War as the “War for Southern Independence,” it may well be that amongst Trump supporters, they look more favorably upon him than that of Abraham Lincoln.

Trump may be truthful, but his ridiculous claim goes a long way towards explaining just what is wrong with this Age of Trump our society is now in.

I’VE ALSO NOTICED that some people are bringing to mind that moment from 1966 when John Lennon of the Beatles said he and his co-horts were “more popular than Jesus Christ.”

Is John Lennon more popular than Trump?

Which had an element of truth if you consider many of that era were shallow enough to be more concerned with pop music than religion. Lennon’s statement wasn’t really anything to be taken as a compliment.

So the idea that Trump is more popular than Honest Abe? I suppose it’s not like he said HE’S bigger than Jesus? Although I wonder if the kind of people inclined to support Trump would forgive him for such a blasphemous thought because they’d like how the very notion would offend people of sense.

Such as those of us of Illinois, where Lincoln remains our biggest political name in U.S. history. Ah well, it’s not like Trump was ever going to get Electoral College votes out of Illinois or would be a political asset to any Republican running for office in the Land of Lincoln.

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Now we can see why the Dems wanted Pritzker so badly to run for governor

Whodathunkit! The big-bucks governor … 

How different would things be these days if Christopher Kennedy or Daniel Biss had somehow managed to win the Democratic primary for governor back in March?

I wonder that because the party’s establishment always made it clear they wanted J.B. Pritzker to be the nominee who challenged Gov. Bruce Rauner’s desire for re-election to a second term as Illinois governor.

… is being outspent. For now!

AFTER LOOKING AT the latest campaign disclosure reports, it becomes blatantly apparent why J.B. was the favorite of da Dems. His wallet.

The Chicago Sun-Times went so far as to break down the totals showing that Pritzker was capable of spending $207,000 per day during the three months ending June 30. By comparison, Rauner was a virtual pauper at a “mere” $83,000 per day on his campaign.

The bulk of that money went to all those annoying campaign ads we’ve been seeing on television taking pot shots at both of the major party candidates. How many more times do we need to see a Pritzker parody taking the sledge hammer to his toilet – so as to cheat the government out of property tax monies he allegedly should have paid.

For the record, the Pritzker campaign spent some $20.1 million during the past three months and had some $18.3 million in its bank accounts as of June 30.

MEANING PRITZKER WAS anxious to try to bury Rauner in so much campaign dung that he’d never be capable of crawling out of the heap. Similar to the 1994 election cycle when Gov. Jim Edgar managed to bury Democratic challenger Dawn Clark Netsch in so much sludge related to her alleged desire for tax hikes that she never was able to gain ground when the campaign cycle peaked in autumn.

Of course, the Rauner campaign isn’t exactly struggling financially.

Some $7.8 million was spent by the Rauner camp trying to make J.B. out to be the ultimate con artist cheating Chicago out of property tax revenues by making his second home technically uninhabitable (no functioning toilets). I’ve seen those campaign ad spots so often, particularly the one with a J.B. lookalike that looks nothing like him.

But Rauner is trying to pace himself, it would seem.

FOR THE SAME campaign reports showed Rauner with $31.8 million in bank accounts on June 30.

Either Pritzker is going to have to cough up significant amounts of more cash for himself or go on a political fundraising spree to match Rauner. Or else accept the fact that he’s going to be significantly out-spent by Bruce, who’s bound to have more sleaze to fling J.B.’s way between now and the Nov. 6 elections.

This is kind of odd, to me at least. Because I’m used to political circumstances where Republican candidates are the ones who have access to the real big money. After all, the very rich want political people in office who are sympathetic to their needs.

Times have changed since days of Jim Edgar

They are capable of outspending the special interest groups that raise money, then donate it to political people they think will sympathize with their causes.

RAUNER WAS DIFFERENT because he showed back in 2014 that he WAS one of those very rich people, only he got tired of giving his money to other people to look out for his interests. Instead, he’s running for office himself.

It seems the Democrats, this time around, trotted out the guy THEY usually turned to for financial support for their candidates. It seems Pritzker already has coughed up some $100 million of his own money to fund his campaign.

Which puts to shame the “mere” $50 million that Rauner donated last year to the fund paying for his campaign and those of assorted Republicans running for General Assembly posts that Bruce wants to win so he can have political allies.

The point being both of these guys are quite a bit different from the days of, say Jim Edgar, who actually had to live off the roughly $150,000 annual salary Illinois paid him to be governor. Between Rauner and Pritzker, one of these guys is in for a serious emotional shock when he realizes how much of his own money he blew on a failed ego trip by running, and losing, for governor.

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Will anyone “come to save the day” for WGN radio/TV takeover by Sinclair?

Learning that the FCC (is that the Federal Cookie Company?) is expressing reservations about allowing suburban Baltimore-based Sinclair Broadcast Group to take over the WGN-TV and radio properties in Chicago as part of a nationwide expansion doesn’t quite ease my own concerns.

Will Trump allow them to intervene?

For I can’t help but think this is merely some rhetoric meant to make it appear as though federal regulators of the public airwaves are actually doing something when in reality they’re inclined to do as little as possible to interfere with the deal that would make Sinclair the largest collection of broadcast properties in the United States.

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION head Ajit Pai issued a statement implying his entity is not prepared to put the rubber stamp to the deal that would give Sinclair control of some 230 broadcast properties – including those founded by Tribune Company that have long thought of themselves as “Chicago’s Very Own.”

Yet I can’t get around the concept that Pai got the FCC post through appointment by President Donald Trump. He’s a political appointee, and the idea of putting all these broadcast properties under single control of a company with a history of believing their ideologue ways are what’s proper would be the kind of thing Trump would approve of.

So is Pai serious in suggesting Monday that an administrative law judge conduct hearings into the deal? I suppose if we learn through Trump’s Twitter rants that Pai has been dismissed for gross incompetence, then it means Pai meant what he said.

Soon to be history?

Otherwise, I suspect it’s a form of rhetoric that merely delays the inevitable, which in the case of Chicago and WGN television and radio means they’re not really locally-run broadcast properties any longer.

THE DAYS OF thinking that Channel 9 and 720-AM were somehow places on the broadcast spectrum that carried the unique perspective of the Second City are no more.

I suspect it’s just a matter of time before the Chicago stations are forced to air as part of the “local” newscasts the commentaries produced out of the corporate offices in Maryland.

The ones that have given Sinclair its reputation within the world of news broadcasting as being ideologically tainted.

The new wave?

My guess is that the first will be on an issue in which Trump wants to get on his high horse and rant and rage about how erroneous Chicago is. Sinclair would probably want to use their new Chicago stations (currently, the closest to Chicago they have to a broadcast property is the ABC affiliate in Springfield, Ill.) to tell Chicago viewers how wrong they are!

WHICH MAKES ME wonder if the character is destined to change so drastically that the properties are ruined. Similar to how back in 1984, the Chicago Sun-Times was bought by Rupert Murdoch’s media entity and the character was altered so drastically that circulation and the paper’s image plummeted – in ways that make some people think Rupert still has a hand.

Even though in reality, he sold the newspaper within two years (so he could buy WFLD-TV in Chicago).

What would Garfield Goose think of new employer?

That deal was because of federal laws controlling just how many properties one can have in a single market, similar to the ones limiting the overall number. Which is why Sinclair is supposedly working out side deals to “sell off” some of the stations they’re about to buy.

One of those is the WGN properties. The Chicago Tribune reported that Atlantic Automotive Corp. of Towson, Md., will buy the Chicago stations.

THEN, THEY WOULD work out an agreement by which Sinclair would handle the actual work of programming and maintaining the stations for them. Because, after all, what would an out-of-state car dealership know about Chicago or broadcasting?

These are the very issues Pai hinted cause the FCC to have reservations. But is the FCC really capable of thwarting a deal if the entity being “harmed” is the one that Trump persists in calling the “enemy of the people?”

Although one often suspects even Trump doesn’t fully believe the nonsense he spews whenever he speaks or Tweets like a twit.

What we’re likely to have occur? Something along the lines of that old Andy Kaufman bit where he lip-synch’s the portion of the “Mighty Mouse” cartoon theme about “Here I come to save the day!” while otherwise standing around doing nothing.

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Illinois AG race about more than 'Obama clone' vs. 'lawyer Barbie'

By the time Kwame Raoul ...

There are times I wonder if people comprehend the purpose of the Illinois attorney general’s office.

For as I always comprehended it, the attorney general (for the past 16 years, it has been Lisa Madigan) has been the attorney for state government. Since our state is a large-scale operation, she has several assistants on her staff.

… and Erika Harold are through, … 

IT’S ALMOST LIKE she’s the head of a law firm whose sole client is Illinois state government. She’s there to defend the state every time someone within it screws up, while also making sure the rights our citizenry are not being violated every which way possible.

It amuses me every time I hear someone complain that the attorney general isn’t prosecuting someone, because it’s obvious to me they’re being swayed by some overbearing vision of what the post is.

Almost as though they think it’s the equivalent of the “state’s attorneys” that Illinois’ 102 counties all have. My guess is that if the attorney general ever tried to take on such tasks, there’d be a whole lot of griping from those local prosecutors about how she is grossly overstepping the bounds of her post.

All of this thought popped into my mind when reading a report recently (from Crain’s Chicago Business) about the state attorney general’s office and how its viewpoint is likely to be impacted by the elections to be held Nov. 6.

BECAUSE MADIGAN HAS made it clear she’s not staying in the post. The Democratic Party already has nominated a possible replacement (state Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago), but there are some Republicans who think their nominee (Erika Harold) is the lone GOPer who has a chance to win something come Election Day.

… what will remains of Lisa Madigan's way?

The Crain’s report talks of all the lawsuits Illinois has filed, or supported, throughout the Age of Trump we’re now in that challenge the federal government on various issues.

With Raoul saying he is a “last line of defense” from a federal government that would be very eager to play partisan politics against Illinois. Meaning he’d intend to pursue all the lawsuits that come from the Madigan Era of the attorney general.

While Harold is much less committal. She’s not offering up much details, but some are reading into her words that she’d be willing to have her staff dismiss the lawsuits they’ve started against the federal government.

“I BELIEVE THE attorney general’s office should not be using their scarce resources to enter into lawsuits for purely political purposes,” she told Crain’s. “I would only sue the federal government if Illinois law has been implicated or the federal government has acted in violation of the Constitution.”

Which is a nice, text book answer that sounds like it came from a law school student trying to suck up to the professor to get a better grade.

For the reality is that way too much of the issues and the law are open to interpretation. One person’s serious cause on behalf of the public becomes an ideologue’s pet issue that they want to dump all over.

And could it be the intent of an “Attorney General Erika Harold” to back off of trying to rile up the federal government in hopes that it might get President Donald Trump to quit getting riled up against Illinois every time he has so little to do that he takes to spewing out political bile on his Twitter account.

Obama, Raoul share just a neighborhood

ALTHOUGH I DID find it interesting to read in the Crain’s report that Harold supports the state lawsuit brought about by Madigan that challenges the Trump administration’s attempt to withhold $6.5 million in federal funds for local law enforcement in Illinois as a response to the concept of “sanctuary cities.”

All of this means we’re going to have a decision to make come Election Day when we get to the portion of the ballot related to state attorney general.

Just how much of a pain in the behind do we want our state government’s legal adviser to be? And to what degree are partisan political issues things that wind up being a part of the public good?

Perhaps an image of Harold that needs to be retired

Definitely something we voters need to give more serious thought to than believing the attorney general’s race to be nothing more than between a Barack Obama clone and a former Miss America who used her prize money to put herself through law school!

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How do you handle a sporting event when you honestly care less who wins?

When it comes to the World Cup, I find the world of international soccer to be interesting – moreso than the hype we have surrounding the Super Bowl or NBA playoffs that seem to last forever.

Yet with the world of international soccer reaching a peak this weekend – and the World Cup tourney bringing a month’s worth of activity to an end with a championship game Sunday, I have to admit I’m not all that enthused.

WHEN THE NATIONAL teams of France and Croatia take to the pitch to try to stake their claim to having the best football club in the world, there will be those thousands of fans packing their way into a stadium in Moscow, and many thousands more gathered around television sets for a lifetime experience.

I’m likely to be watching on television, hoping something will happen to make the game itself memorable.

But I honestly can’t say I’m rooting for either side. The idea of France vs. Croatia brings about a bit of a “blah” in me.

I’m sort of glad to see that in the semi-final match on Wednesday, England fell short of Croatia. Mainly because I can’t think of anything less interesting than the idea of an international championship coming down to a brawl between England and France.

I KNOW THE history.

I don’t doubt that to the English (and only the English, not anybody from Scotland, Wales or Ireland), it would be a moment of great historic significance if they had been able to win a World Cup championship against their historic arch-rival. Instead, they’ll settle for playing in a consolation game Saturday against Belgium – a match I won’t be able to watch, because I’ll have to do reporter-type work that day.

But perhaps I have too much of an all-American Yankee Doodle Dandy in me. I was interested in the World Cup this year for the vision it gave us of the rest of the world. Not to see the one-time world powers try to pretend that history remains the same and that the world revolves around a London/Paris axis.

While some might think that makes me a natural to root for Croatia to win come Sunday, I just don’t see it happening.

LARGELY BECAUSE I have had friends in my lifetime who are of Serbian ethnic origins. Somehow, I suspect they’d pay me a “surprise” visit and feed me a meal of knuckle sandwiches if they thought I was somehow rooting for their nation’s historic rival.

I know for some people who think of themselves as soccer fans, their interest in World Cup ’18 diminished last autumn when the U.S. national team couldn’t even qualify to be among the 32 teams that played this year.

Trinidad and Tobago will be places that get demonized in their minds, what with how it was their team that managed to knock the United States out of the running, and which spared fans the world over the sight and sound of the “American Outlaws” group leading “U-S-A” chants all over the one-time Soviet Union.

For me, I am a fan of el Tri, the national equipo de futbol of Mexico, and usually find myself taking interest in all the teams from nations that are a part of the Americas. When Hirving Lozano (nicknamed “Chucky”) scored the lone goal against Germany, that was my personal highlight of the 2018 version of the World Cup.

SO WHEN MEXICO got knocked out of the running by Brazil, then Brazil lost in the quarterfinals to Belgium, my own intense rooting interests in this year’s World Cup declined. They diminished altogether when Uruguay lost to France – who may wind up winning their third World Cup tourney ever come Sunday.

Putting them behind Brazil (with five titles) historically, but well ahead of anybody else in the Americas.

The World Cup is one of those periodic athletic events. We’ll get it again come 2022 in Qatar. We’ll get to see Middle Eastern sheiks staging the event in all the opulence possible for matches played out in the desert.

Yet I don’t doubt there are those fans of soccer who already have shifted their attention to 2026. That’s the year we’ll get to see World Cup activity in the United States – the first time since 1994. Along with Mexico (which had it in 1970 and 1986) and Canada (never before). We’ll have to see if the nations of North America can play nice with each other while the world watches.

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Political people seem never to learn about using failed campaign tactics

GOP would rather 'Fire Madigan!'...

It has been a constant of electoral politics amongst Republicans in Illinois during the 21st century – Mike Madigan represents evil and all that is wrong with our state, and the key to success is to knock him out of political control.

Of course, Madigan has been in the General Assembly for nearly a half-century, has been Illinois House speaker for most of the past four decades, and all the cheap trash talk about “Fire Madigan!” hasn’t gone anywhere in recent electoral cycles.

… rather than study Rauner flaws

YET THAT ISN’T stopping the Illinois Republican Party, the one stuck with a gubernatorial nominee who’s most definitely unpopular amongst the rank-and-file of the GOP, from continuing to tread down this path.

The Republicans of the Illinois House on Thursday came up with their campaign strategy – touting what they’re calling a “People’s Pledge” that asks all Republican officials to show their loyalty to the one-time Party of Lincoln by promising two things:

·        Term limits for anyone serving in a legislative post or other statewide government office, and

·        Refusing to support the idea of letting Madigan have yet another two-year term as Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives.

Is this really a successful political strategy?

It seems the part of the Republican Party that used to take great pride is claiming to be all about the ideals of “favorite son” President Abraham Lincoln is now more committed to the ideals of “dumping” Madigan.

Who admittedly has as one of his ideals using his political influence to ensure that Chicago gets its fair share of whatever services and funding Illinois is capable of providing.

WHICH IS A large part of why I personally can say I support Madigan’s continued role within state government – in an era when we have Republican officials in this state who’d like to think the state should be cracking down on the influence of its major city, Madigan’s hardball political tactics may be what keeps the state from being run roughshod over.

Probably has this t-shirt tucked away in dresser drawer

Perhaps they’d prefer the style of the Barack Obama presidency – whom a recent poll said was thought of to be the best presidency of recent times. Which struck me as odd – unless the poll was taken amongst no one except 10-year-olds.

For as much as the Obama era was based in some high-minded ideals, the reality is that Obama wasn’t capable of standing up to the partisan tactics of a national GOP that was determined to undermine him.

And which now is fully supportive of an Age of Trump determined to erase any traces that Obama ever existed. Of course, these are the same people all offended these days that Gov. Bruce Rauner not only attended, but officiated over, a wedding ceremony between two men.

Do modern-day Ill. Republicans think much ...

PERHAPS WE’D HAVE some lasting traces of the Obama presidency if that administration had someone more like Madigan in a position of authority. And while current Mayor Rahm Emanuel may have been a chief of staff during the Obama Years, his time in that post was too short to have a lasting effect.

So now, we’re going to hear over and over about this “People’s Pledge” and the idea that all our problems would be solved if we’d merely “Fire Madigan.” Although the same tactics were used by Republicans in the 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016 election cycles – and they didn’t seem to work then.

Is the Illinois Republican Party determined to keep trying this tactic, then try to rewrite history in the future to claim it was successful all along – except that certain voters didn’t pay attention?

… of either of the state's 'favorite sons?'

What actually bothers them is that they remember the days of not all that long ago when Illinois had four consecutive governors of the Republican persuasion. They also remember that two-year stint (1995 and ’96) when all of Illinois government was Republican-run, from Jim Edgar as governor all the way down through the constitutional offices and the state Legislature.

THEY MAY LONG for the brief interlude of when Madigan himself was reduced to the role of “Illinois House minority leader,” and we actually had the concept of “Illinois House Speaker Lee Daniels of Elmhurst.”

DANIELS: The Illinois one, that is

Although Daniels is now long-gone from the political scene, and I suspect when most people hear that name, they think I’m referring to the guy who directed the 2013 film “The Butler.”

I’m not claiming Illinois must have Mike Madigan in a position of authority in order to exist. The day will come, and likely not that far off in the future (Madigan is 76) when the “esteemed” Mr. Speaker will depart.

I just don’t think recycling the same, failed campaign tactics of demonizing Madigan are going to be what ultimately hastens the man’s departure.

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