EXTRA: Which one do we believe?

Perhaps I should get used to this -- campaign fliers cluttering my mailbox. Candidates trying to sway me to think of themselves as the only seriously legitimate politicos -- and everybody else as corrupt!
 

Pro-pop tax ...

The next primary election is March 20 and general election more than a year away in November.

YET THAT DIDN'T stop my mailbox from having a pair of leaflets stuffed in them -- rather glossy things trying to sway me on the merits of the pop tax.

It literally was a split decision -- one flier paid for by Michael Bloomberg telling me of the health risks of pop consumption, and the other from the Can the Tax Coalition (and paid for by the American Beverage Association) telling me of the evils of the penny-per-ounce tax on sweetened beverages sold within Cook County.

I think the Coke-like cans labeled "heart disease," "diabetes" and "obesity" look corny and cheesy. But the other spot looks just a bit too phony, as in the so-called real people who supposedly are opposed to the tax look a bit like beginning actors earning a fee by playing the parts of real people.

So which of these fliers should I take seriously? Should I bother paying attention to either one?

THEY'RE NOT THE first handouts I have received on this issue, and I'm sure there will be many more to come in upcoming days before the county board's Finance Committee holds the hearing Oct. 10 that is meant to review an ordinance that (if passed) would repeal the pop tax that barely passed the county board earlier this year.

... and con

One-and-a-half more weeks of this rhetoric about carbonated beverages, then we can move on to the assorted cheap shots we'll be asked to endure about the gubernatorial candidates and other officials who are up for re-election come 2018.

Including Toni Preckwinkle herself. The county board President may wind up not having to face a primary election challenger. But I'm sure many other people will take her name in vain as they try to bash about other politicos with whatever rhetoric they think will tie someone else to the pop tax.

  -30-

ELECTION DAZE: How did gubernatorial dreamers ‘play’ in Peoria?

Personally, I thought the Thursday night debate between Gov. Pat Quinn and Republican challenger Bruce Rauner was rather “blah.” More a matter of scratching my head and wondering, “Do we really have to pick from these two guys for our state’s next governor?”

But I can think of one group of persons who probably were ecstatic with what they heard from the two – public educators.

SPECIFICALLY, I’M REFERRING to those schools superintendents all across Illinois who have been quaking in their pants for some time now concerning a measure pending in the Illinois General Assembly – the one that seeks to redo the way state aid is apportioned to school districts.

The bill in question, which has state Senate approval but still needs review by the Illinois House of Representatives, is meant to give more state funds to those school districts in areas where property values are on the decline.

But I have heard several superintendents and financial advisors say the bill’s specifics are so complex and convoluted that there aren’t any easy ‘winners’ and ‘losers.’ I have heard from district officials who are convinced they will lose money even though they technically are in areas where property taxes just don’t produce enough cash to keep the schools functioning at a respectable level.

During the debate, both candidates were asked whether they’d support the bill.

QUINN SAID HE hates it because he doesn’t like the idea of any school district losing state funds. He wants to find a way to increase the state’s share of money for all districts.

Whereas Rauner admitted he hadn’t studied the bill in great detail, but said that from what he had heard, he’d be inclined to oppose it.

Does this mean the sudden “whoosh” we heard Thursday night was the sound of superintendents across Illinois exhaling at the prospect that this reform measure may eventually wither away?

What else should we think of what was the first of three formal debates between Quinn and Rauner prior to the Nov. 4 general election?

LEGISLATORS GET ENDORSEMENTS THEY MAY NOT WANT: At one point, Bruce Rauner confessed to having respect for state Rep. Jack Franks, D-Woodstock, and state Sen. Toi Hutchinson, D-Olympia Fields.

While Pat Quinn said he respects Illinois House Minority Leader Jim Durkin, R-Western Springs, and former state Sen. Kirk Dillard of Hinsdale – who now is in charge of running the Regional Transportation Authority.

The question was meant to give the two gubernatorial hopefuls a chance to express some bipartisan support.

But how long will it be until those people named wind up wishing that the candidates had kept their mouths shut and not singled them out? Because we do have way too many people who view “bipartisan” as the ultimate dirty word.

POLITICAL ‘LOVE’ BY ASSOCIATION?: Bruce Rauner offered up Michigan Gov. Rick Scott, Florida Gov. Rick Scott and one-time New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg as examples of business-oriented people who achieved government office.

He tried to claim them as examples of why he should not be regarded as too inexperienced to hold Illinois government’s top political post. But I can think of many people who would view those examples as proof of why we should vote for Pat Quinn.

As for the Mighty Quinn? He tried at one point to gain some goodwill by touting the accomplishments of that Jackie Robinson West Little League team from the Roseland neighborhood that almost won the Little League World Series this year.

It makes me wonder if, on that date sometime in the future when Quinn has to appear before St. Peter and justify his admission to ‘Heaven,” will he try trotting those youngsters out as an example of something positive that happened on his watch?

GO AWAY!!!!: Chad Grimm is a 33-year-old gym manager who has the Libertarian Party nomination for governor. He also happens to live in Peoria, which would have made him the lone candidate who didn’t have to travel a great distance to partake in the debate at WTPV-TV studios in that central Illinois city.

But we didn’t get to see or hear from him, because the debate organizers wanted only candidates who register 10 percent or more in polls to participate. Various polls that have included Grimm put him at about 5 percent backing.

I know the rationale from TV types; they don’t want the stage cluttered with candidates who can’t win. But I have never bought that – I have always thought anyone who can actually beat the legal challenges and get their names on the Election Day ballot ought to be included.

So that the voters know for sure just who that otherwise-anonymous knucklehead is when they show up at a polling place to cast their ballots.

  -30-

EXTRA: If we have to have a piece of New York, couldn’t it be the Yankees?

I don’t hate New York. It is an intriguing city unlike any other place in this country, and I think people who have hang-ups about the city are being ridiculously provincial.

BLOOMBERG: Wants a Daley

But I have to confess to finding it annoying that a couple of New York personas feel the need to get involved in the local affairs of Chicago.

NEW YORK MAYOR Michael Bloomberg is getting involved in our state’s election for governor in 2014. It seems he’s offering up support for the gubernatorial aspirations of William Daley.

As though a Daley didn’t have enough advantages, he may also wind up getting financial support from the campaign committee controlled by Bloomberg – whose help was a significant factor in allowing former state legislator Robin Kelly to emerge from a crowded pack of candidates to become the new Congresswoman from the Far South Side and surrounding suburbs.

If that isn’t enough to try to put us in a New York frame of mind, long-time activist Al Sharpton says he plans to move to Chicago later this year. Not permanently, just a few months.

Similar to how civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., lived on the West Side for a few months in 1966 to try to draw attention to the racial tensions that existed in Chicago.

ODDLY ENOUGH, BOTH Sharpton and Bloomberg are motivated by the same issue – the level of violence that has arisen in Chicago.

I’ll be the first to say (and in fact have written several times) that I believe many people are letting their paranoia get the best of them. Or else they’re willing to exaggerate what is really happening in Chicago to suit their own ideological beliefs.

Which, when you come down to it, is what both Bloomberg and Sharpton are doing as well.

SHARPTON: Rev. King, the sequel?

The Rev. Al says he will rent an apartment come September, and work with the Greater St. John Bible Church. He wants to get into the neighborhoods and try to make change.

WHICH IS A noble goal. But not one that I think can be accomplished by someone moving in for a few weeks come autumn. Because we should be honest. By the time we get our first snowfall of 2013-14 winter, he’ll be back in the Bronx.

By comparison, Bloomberg wants to get in on the urban violence level from the top!

He gave Daley a video to be released that says the brother and son of former Chicago mayors is best for supporting restrictions on firearms and their use.

Although that aspect sounds more like Daley trying to undermine Gov. Pat Quinn – who on Tuesday was to make changes to the law permitting people to carry firearms concealed on their person for self-defense.

PURE POLITICKING. THEN again, Daley is as aspiring politician – even though his resume holds no elective offices; just appointed positions.

More interesting than Chgo baseball

All of this has me wondering what New York persona will next feel the need to come to Chicago. Not that I mind them visiting our wonderful city – so long as they don’t try to view us as some sort of battleground for their own New York aspirations with our interests and concerns coming in second to those of the five boroughs.

Which is what the case appears to be here – Bloomberg and Sharpton are trying to bolster their strength back home while on our turf. Whether our situation improves is only secondary.

If New York really has to give us something, why couldn’t it be the Yankees? Or at least the spirit that the Yankees have shown this season in managing a winning record despite suffering so many injuries that you’d have expected them to play as poorly this season as either of our city’s ball clubs.

  -30-

When it comes to firearms, are we intertwined with N.Y.?

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg threw money into the campaign of newly-elected Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill., to bolster his own political efforts in his home city to maintain strict limits on legal access to firearms.

So perhaps it is perfect that a legal decision impacting those New York laws has the potential to bolster the interests of those people in Chicago who want equally-strict, if not stricter, measures to apply here.

FOR THE RECORD, the Supreme Court of the United States on Monday said it will not take up a case involving New York’s laws concerning the concept of “concealed carry.”

New York may be among the 49 states that permit some people to carry a pistol on their person while out in public. But the state, along with some others (including California), gives law enforcement officials great discretion to decide who is worthy of such a permit. Most people don’t qualify.

It is a far cry from the situation that the firearms advocates would have us believe is true – that there are 49 states that permit people to “pack heat” in public, and then mean, old Illinois which is denying the public the chance to defend themselves from urban violence.

Those advocates were upset that a Court of Appeals for the New York-area upheld the state statutes. They filed their own appeal to the Supreme Court – hoping that the mentality that seems to prevail among a slim (5 to 4) majority of the high court – would come through and the New York law would get taken down.

IT DIDN’T HAPPEN!

For the high court decided not to touch the issue – which means they’re doing nothing and the appeals court ruling will remain in place. Which means the New York take on “concealed carry” remains the law of that state.

And the police will continue to have a lot of discretion in determining whether or not someone really faces circumstances that make having a pistol a necessity.

So what does any of this have to do with Chicago, and Illinois?

OUR STATE’S GENERAL Assembly faces a situation where a Court of Appeals for the Midwestern U.S. issued a ruling that says the state needs to have some sort of law that permits “concealed carry” for our residents.

What form this law will take is uncertain – other than that something has to happen within two months (the court back in January set a 180-day time limit for action to occur).

The firearms advocates here have been taking a fairly uncompromising attitude. They view the appeals court as setting the proper direction – that a law allowing for more pistols in public is the way to go.

In fact, the reason given by many gun control proponents for not challenging the Midwestern appeals court’s ruling was a fear that the Supreme Court would reject it – and use such a ruling as the mechanism for striking down all sorts of firearms restrictions across the country.

SO DOES THE fact that the Supreme Court was unwilling to alter the New York law mean that it might be inclined to leave alone some sort of effort to place restrictions on who can keep a pistol on them in Illinois?

There is a sense that it would be reflective of the local population (which is the theory that the conservative ideologues like to spout; except when it interferes with their ability to push their morals down everybody’s throat) to have stricter laws on firearms in Illinois than in a place like Idaho.

The states with the most restrictive laws on this issue are California and New York – which contain Los Angeles and New York City. Why wouldn’t Illinois have similar attitudes?

Even if the people in Cairo, Ill., like to boast that they’re closer both physically and in spirit with Jackson, Miss.? And the firearms advocates here have been saying they're going to oppose anything related to Chicago that comes before the state Legislature until they get their way.

OF COURSE, THERE are no guarantees. For all I know, the high court could decide to use any action in Illinois (instead of New York) to take on the issue on behalf of firearms advocates.

But I can’t help but breathe a little bit easier at the thought that the Supreme Court did not feel compelled to address the New York situation.

While I suspect that its motives on this issue were similar to its appearance when hearing arguments concerning gay marriage (many justices seemed as though they wished the issue would just go away), the end result comes out favorable.

“No news is good news” would seem to be the rule of thumb applicable here.

  -30-

How outraged are we when it comes to firearms amongst the public?

Debbie Halvorson has tried to make an issue in her bid for a Congressional comeback that an outsider – in the form of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg – is meddling in ways meant to hurt her Election Day chances.


BLOOMBERG: Concerned citizen? Or meddler?

Yet it doesn’t seem like the locals are all that upset. Somehow, I suspect if Mayor Rahm Emanuel were to try to influence a New York election, we’d hear the cry from the Bronx to Brooklyn to Staten Island – “Shaddup!!!”

HE'D BE DEMONIZED. He’d get trashed for meddling. We’re not hearing anything like that against Bloomberg. Is it because the bulk of us approve of his message?

Specifically, Bloomberg has used his personal wealth to create one of those Super PAC organizations that can pay for campaign advertising related to issues (instead of candidates).

For Bloomberg, the issue he wants to promote is gun control. He also wants to take down the political influence that the National Rifle Association. So he’s making much of the fact that the NRA did not find Halvorson completely repulsive back when she was in Congress (and before that, in the state Legislature).

Bloomberg is even endorsing former state Rep. Robin Kelly in the campaign to replace Jesse Jackson, Jr., in the House of Representatives – on the grounds that her “F” grade from the NRA makes her ideal!

YET KELLY DOESN'T seem all that concerned. She goes around citing her “F” as an accomplishment. She seems to think the legislative district is so overwhelmingly urban (about 85 percent of its voters are from either Chicago proper or the inner suburbs) that the rural residents at the district’s southern end won’t be able to hurt her – no matter how much they object to her stance on firearms-related issues.

She may be right, although I encountered a suburban mayor this past weekend who supports Halvorson, and said he thinks all those rural voters will turn out so strongly for her BECAUSE they will want to send a message to Bloomberg that they don’t want his firearms restrictions into law.

HALVORSON: The target?

Yet there probably aren’t enough of them to shift the results of the Tuesday Democratic primary election (also because I think most of those people will be looking to the Republican primary and its five candidates).

But for the bulk of people who live in the Illinois Second Congressional district, it would seem we’re seeing these Bloomberg television spots and not getting all that upset by the message.

MANY OF US may even agree with them.

I couldn’t help but notice on Tuesday the results of a new poll by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute – 59.5 percent of those surveyed think controlling gun ownership is more important than protecting the right to own guns (31.3 percent).

And some 72.3 percent said they think laws concerning firearms sales should be made more strict – compared to the 2.2 percent who want them to be less strict.

In Colorado this week, the state Legislature gave its approval to a series of restrictions on firearms and ammunition – including the latest fad of banning ammunition clips that can hold dozens of rounds of bullets at once.

SOME 62.8 PERCENT would like to see such a measure in Illinois, according to the poll.

All of which makes me wonder about the political fight we’re going to see in our own Legislature this spring. Don’t forget that there’s an appellate court ruling that indicates Illinois has to create some sort of measure that allows people to carry pistols on their person in public.

KELLY: The beneficiary?

The firearms rights advocates are going about with a sense of confidence that they don’t have to concede anything, and that a lot of the talk of restrictions they have had to fight will now be on the defensive.

But if that were true, wouldn’t we have more public outcry in Halvorson’s defense? Wouldn’t we have people publicly denouncing the effort – instead of sitting quietly on the sidelines with a little smirk on our collective faces?

ONE OTHER FACTOR from that poll I couldn’t help but notice – 49.7 percent of those surveyed don’t think the Constitution’s Second Amendment includes “concealed carry,” compared to 39.5 percent who say “yes.” Some 71.3 percent think there should be exceptions to concealed carry, as in places where firearms can be banned absolutely.

 

That brawl we’re going to see in coming months will be ugly. It may wind up making the rhetoric against gay marriage look weak and tame by comparison.

  -30-

EXTRA: Halvorson ideological “flip flop” is headache-inducing for us all

HALVORSON: Which extreme is she?

Am I the only one who thinks the trash-talk being spewed these days against the Congressional campaign of Debbie Halvorson is just a tad absurd?

To listen to the rhetoric being inspired by the political action committee headed up by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg – whose interest is in fighting for tougher gun control measures and against the political influence of the National Rifle Association – Debbie is Illinois’ answer to Sarah Palin.

HALVORSON, DURING HER two years (2009 and 2010) as a member of Congress, had a voting record that wasn’t totally despised by the NRA (compared to the “F” grade they gave to one-time state Rep. Robin Kelly).

But now we’re supposed to believe that Halvorson is some sort of gun nut. Maybe she’s out there in a corn field near her home in Crete at the edge of the Chicago suburbs with an AK-47 shooting at deer – just like Palin encouraged the image of herself hunting moose in the wilds of Alaska?

That image of Halvorson is just too ridiculous to take seriously.

It’s true that Halvorson says firearms restrictions alone won’t reduce urban violence – she also says we ought to have more funding to create vocational programs in hopes that non-college bound people will find some skills of use that will detract them from the streets and gangs and violence.

BUT THERE ARE people trying to push Debbie so far to the right that it’s downright absurd. She's probably somewhere in the middle; we agree with her on some points, and disagree on others.

Actually, it’s just as ridiculous as the rhetoric she faced back in the 2010 election cycle. That was when the residents of rural Will County turned on Debbie despite her life-long residency in the old Congressional district to send Republican Adam Kinzinger to Congress.

She was one of the targets of the “Tea Party” types who thought Halvorson was some sort of liberal urban freak (a graduate of Bloom High School in Chicago Heights and a Democrat who took marching orders from then-Senate President Emil Jones). In fact, those people who live in her newly-crafted Congressional district are the ones who are still going to dump on her for “liberal” tendencies – while others will trash her for “conservative” leanings.

Halvorson just can’t seem to win! No matter what she says or does.

NOW THIS IS not meant as any kind of Halvorson endorsement. Personally, I think circumstances are such that her time as an elected official has come and gone. Twelve years in the Illinois Legislature and one term in the House of Representatives is more time than many political dreamers ever get.

In fact, I fear she could become the female version of Roland Burris (who spent a decade’s worth of time in the 1990s and 2000s unsuccessfully running for office and gradually making himself look more and more foolish with each campaign).

Although I wonder if some sort of appointed post is in her future – particularly since the man (Jesse Jackson, Jr.) who was so vehemently opposed to her getting an Illinois transportation appointment is now gone from the political scene. Unless she persists with future campaigns that chip away at her public perception.

It’s all in her own hands!

  -30-

 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Insofar as the Bloomberg-inspired ads that Halvorson complains about, I just have one thought. How vehemently would New Yorkers react if Mayor Rahm Emanuel did or said anything to try to influence it? How quickly would they tell Rahm-bo to "stuff it!"

 

N.Y. “pop” ban good if it hurts gougers

Yes, a part of me thinks that New York City municipal officials are being ridiculous for expending their precious time on trying to pass a ban on movie theaters selling those ridiculously-absurd sizes of extra large cups for soda pop.

BLOOMBERG: Health nut? Or idle hands?

You’d think Michael Bloomberg would have better things to focus on, and I suspect that is the motivation for many of the 51 percent of people who said in a recent poll that they oppose the mayor on this issue.

BUT I HAVE to confess, a part of me wishes that some Illinois-based official would push for a similar restriction.

Not because I believe that Bloomberg’s stated goal of improving the overall health of New Yorkers will be achieved by not letting them be capable of buying the obscenely-large cups that are sold.

But because I see it as a rebellion against every single snotty kid who works in a movie theater concessions stand and engages in an aggressive pitch to try to get me to buy the larger size because “it’s just a quarter (or 50 cents) more.”

I understand that the kid could care less what I buy, that he’s merely a minimum-wage worker, and that he’s following the instructions of his boss – the theater manager, who is pushing those larger sizes off onto people to bolster the bottom line of his particular theater.

WHICH LIKELY IS part of some large chain and that has some computer printouts available that judge the manager in question on how much pop and popcorn he can peddle.

Because I realize those $10 per person tickets for the actual admission to the theater don’t do anything for the profitability. The movie producers get the bulk of that money.

The theaters make their money off all the junk food they can sell you.

And to ensure that they can charge us prices that we would never pay in the real world (a.k.a., a Walgreen’s or a Jewel or perhaps a real candy story), they come up with those humongous sizes.

WE THINK THAT we’re getting our money’s worth when we pay something like $6 for a cup of soda because it’s somewhere around 48 ounces.

But who in their right mind is going to drink all of that in one sitting?

It’s either warm and/or flat by the end of the two hour-plus cinematic production. Or you actually managed to guzzle it all down, and you’re now thoroughly disgusting to everybody around you because you’re belching up a storm.

All that gas from having drank so much pop.

IT’S EVEN MORE disgusting than some of the films that are passed off as “horror flicks” but are really just collections of grotesque images strung together.

And if the only reason that exists for having such deformed sizes of pop cups in existence in movie theaters is to bolster a cineplex’ financial bottom line, that just isn’t good enough to me to justify it.

Let them die!

It wouldn’t bother me in the least to see more rational policies put into place when it comes to concessions. It has got to the point where I don’t go to a movie theater all that often just because I don’t want to be confronted with an orgy, so to speak, of obscenely-sized candies and cokes.

OF COURSE, I also have to admit that the main reason I don’t go to movie theaters regularly is because I can’t stand the crummy selection of films they show.

Just this week, my local theater (part of the Marcus chain) is showing Madagascar 3 and Prometheus on three screens each, along with Men in Black 3 and Show White & The Huntsmen on two screens each.

I suppose I should feel thankful that they have the Dark Shadows film restricted to one screen, and are not giving us that everywhere we look.

All in all, it reduces the number of films that actually get shown locally. I don’t like to have to make the long haul of a drive to see a worthy film that gets squeezed out of my local theater to enhance the “viewing opportunities” for certain dreck to be overplayed.

WHICH IS TO say that I think many of us are depriving ourselves of the chance to buy those perversely priced pop cups because we think the films themselves stink!

And we’ve certainly come a long way from the days when an animated hot dog, popcorn and pop danced across the screen, urging us “all (to) go to the lobby” to get ourselves a not-so-overpriced treat.

  -30-

EDITOR'S NOTE: I sort of agree with one-time Illinois Statehouse news broadcaster and state Attorney General spokesman Abdul-Hakim Shabazz that this pop cup ban is a nonsensical issue that Mayor Bloomberg should not be wasting time on. So I'll sort of support his "Do nothing" candidacy for public office at a date yet to be determined. A non-endorsement for a non-candidacy.

  -30-