It’s the guns, stupid!

President Barack Obama is the master orator whose words this week helped soothe the tensions caused by weekend shootings in Tuscon, Ariz., while presidential  dreamer Sarah Palin is the feisty dame whose words know how to fire up her segment of supporters.

DALEY: Getting to the point



Yet leave it to one of the biggest rhetorical stumblebums of the contemporary political scene to get straight to the point of what matters when it comes to the aftermath of those shootings of nearly 20 people, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., that left six dead.

I’M TALKING, OF course, about Richard M. Daley, our long-time mayor who goes off into retirement come May 15.

On the same day that Obama traveled to Tuscon to deliver an address at a memorial service that is being praised for offering comfort to the afflicted and that Palin managed to afflict the comfortable with her mention of the phrase “blood libel” (she doesn’t like all the people who imply her nasty rhetoric has anything to do with the angry mood of our nation these days), Daley had his own thoughts about the issue.

Daley went straight to the point in refusing to blame Palin, or anyone else. For Daley – whose city is actively resisting efforts to make it easy for any resident to purchase a firearm – it’s all about the guns.

“People can shout and say anything they want,” Daley told reporter-types at City Hall. “But they have no right to buy a gun … that has a clip of 15 rounds.”

THAT WAS JUST part of his rant against people who are trying to assess blame against Palin, or other conservative commentators, or any other individual. The man whose home city for nearly 30 years banned possession of firearms by anyone within city limits wants to ignore the commentators who say nasty things and focus on the people in our society who probably should not have access to firearms.

“It’s not the rhetoric,” Daley said. “It’s the right to carry these guns or have guns like this that kill people, and that’s what that individual did.”

PALIN: Get her a better speechwriter



For once in his professional lifetime, Daley hit the hammer on the head – rather than give us a rhetorical stumble (Remember the ‘rat in the sandwich’ line when he was talking about unsanitary restaurants?) that leaves us scratching our heads trying to figure out “What did he mean?”

Perhaps there is something about our local politicos that makes them perceive this issue more clearly. For I couldn’t help but notice that in the initial spurt of public dialogue on Sunday, while many other people were talking about restricting Internet discourse or talk radio rabble, Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., was the one person who publicly noted that the gunman in this particular incident had ammunition clips giving him access to 90 rounds – far more than was necessary for anyone to seriously say the pistol was for self-defense.

WE OUGHT TO be having a serious discussion in this country about firearms. But I am aware of the realities of some people in our society who are determined to think that somehow, the ability of a rural man to have a rifle that he uses to hunt will somehow be impeded by restricting the use of a firearm best suited for combat.

I’m also aware that many of those people are in the small segment of the population that takes kindly to the image that the former Alaska governor has crafted for herself. I’m also sure they are the ones who are outraged that the majority of people are now condemning her for her “blood libel” trash talk.

She is trying to claim that people are libeling her with the blood of those killed and wounded in Tuscon – which is a gross overstatement, while also playing off the original use of the phrase. It ties into the old anti-Semitic rants and tales that claimed Jewish people literally dipped their matzos into the blood of dead Christian children on Passover and other significant holidays.

I’m willing to give Palin the benefit of the doubt that she didn’t know that original meaning of the phrase. I know she went to college (several of them, as a matter of fact) and isn’t the stupidest person on the planet, but she also doesn’t strike me as one who has much curiosity about life beyond her specific segment of society – and I don’t expect she knew many Jewish people while living in Alaska.

SHE PROBABLY JUST thought it was a nasty-sounding line she could toss out to get her backers excited.

Considering that her original intent in scheduling an address of any kind on Wednesday (even a video post on Facebook) was to cut into the coverage of Obama trying to calm the nation by appearing at the primary memorial service in Tuscon, I think it only appropriate that her rhetoric backfired on her – and now she gets to take a few hits in return for trying to feed her public persona off the pain being experienced by those in Tuscon.

OBAMA: Did he bring us together?


You just know that in some peoples’ minds, Wednesday set the tone for a potential Obama/Palin presidential campaign in 2012. Obama brings us together, while Palin divides us.

Like I have already written, Daley has zeroed in on the practical reality that this incident ought to be a call for gun control measures to be reviewed. Although I feel I must credit Obama for one moment of inspiration in his own rhetoric.

CITING CHRISTINA TAYLOR Green, the 9-year-old granddaughter of former Chicago Cubs general manager Dallas Green, the president pointed out the accomplishments she achieved in her short life, then said, “I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it.”

That is an inspirational goal we should all strive for.

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Just sign the bill already, Governor

Gov. Pat Quinn is confronted with a chance in coming weeks to gain some national attention for himself, although I strongly suspect this was an opportunity he gladly would have passed on.

QUINN: A tougher choice than 66 percent



For the Illinois General Assembly in recent weeks worked a bill through the process that abolishes the concept of capital punishment for people convicted of certain violent crimes.

THERE HASN’T BEEN an execution in Illinois in nearly 12 years, and the few inmates currently on the state’s death rows aren’t in any danger of being put to death by lethal injection because of the moratorium on executions enacted by then-Gov. George Ryan and maintained by every single one of his predecessors.

That even includes Quinn, who during last year’s campaign cycle pledged to keep the moratorium in place, compared to his opponent, William Brady, who wanted to do away with it and go back to scheduling execution dates so that death could proceed for these inmates.

Of course, Quinn also said back then that he could support having a capital crimes statute in Illinois law, “when applied carefully and fairly.”

So what’s the deal, guv?

ARE YOU FOR, or against, capital punishment? It’s all in your hands now, since the Legislature did their work to pass a bill that abolishes the death penalty laws that Illinois enacted in 1977 (the laws that existed prior to then were struck down in 1972 by the Supreme Court of the United States, and Illinois actually didn’t have a death penalty in those five years in between, which is why Richard Speck rotted and died in prison and Henry Brisbon, the "I-57 Killer," continues to rot).

For the record, gubernatorial aides are telling reporter-types as little as possible, saying merely that Quinn will review the bill. The governor himself on Wednesday would only say he would, "follow my conscience" when he gets the bill.

My guess is that Quinn never would have imagined it possible that the General Assembly could get its act together and get enough votes to pass this measure – which by its very nature ticks off prosecutorial types and certain sick-minded law-and-order types who like the idea of being able to “play God” and take away life in certain circumstances.

If you didn’t realize it already, you would have figured it out by that last statement. I don’t favor the death penalty, in part because it is too flawed and we have too many documented cases of people who faced execution, only to have it learned that their criminal convictions were seriously flawed.

SO QUINN, IF he were to show some nerve and sign the bill into law, would be granting my desire on this particular issue.

But there is something about Quinn’s lack of nerve on this issue that bothers me. It is the sense I detect that Quinn himself seriously wishes this issue would go away without him having to make a decision – because he doesn’t want to offend those people who have been ranting and raging and will continue to do so unless Illinois remains like Indiana, instead of becoming like Wisconsin and places like California and New York (the states that have the other two major cities of our nation).

I’m wondering if Quinn really believes that he’s better off not stirring up the political hornet’s nest of the conservative ideologues who want a death penalty, rather than giving in to the desires of many of the people who actually voted for him back in November.

Because like I wrote earlier, it was Brady who was the candidate who included in his views on issues the belief that we need to resume executing people. Quinn, by his desire to keep the moratorium, was the candidate for voters who want to see an end to the death penalty in Illinois.

NOW QUINN THINKS he can appease the people on this issue who didn’t support him by giving them their desire? It doesn’t work that way. Those people won’t give Quinn one bit of credit for doing so. His backers, however, would take a veto of this bill as a blow to their collective kneecaps.

If anything, I think President Barack Obama can be used as an example of what happens if Quinn vetoes a death penalty repeal – or takes a day and forever to figure out what to do.

Not that Obama has taken on any significant death penalty issues during his time as president. For Obama, the issue is immigration reform.

He has tossed out the rhetoric in his books and occasional presidential statements indicating he comprehends why reform of the federal immigration statutes are needed. But his actions to move in that direction have been weak. We don’t have immigration reform. In fact, we have a new House of Representatives that likely is going to start pushing for punitive measures on immigration policy that will worsen the situation.

THE RESULT FOR Obama is a growing Latino voter bloc that isn’t sure whether the president is the enemy, or just an incompetent. If any other candidate were to come along in 2012 and show even the slightest bit of interest on the issue, it could hurt Obama.

And while sometimes political officials take negative actions to show that they’re not controlled by a certain group in hopes that it will gain them support elsewhere, that hasn’t been the case here.

I haven’t heard the conservative ideologues crack Obama one break because his staff stood in the way of immigration reform. All the rancid rhetoric about him being a “socialist” is heard as loud as ever in certain quarters.

Just like Quinn won’t catch a break by vetoing the death penalty. The kind of people who would get most worked up over the issue are the ones who will find plenty of other issues with which to object to Pat.

SO GOVERNOR, PLEASE, just sign the bill. Abolition is a long-overdue act, and it’s not like we have a functioning death penalty process anymore. This would just bring Illinois law into compliance with actual practice.

Nobody needs to have to make the trip to Tamms in the early minutes of the new day to watch someone get drugged to death (it is classified as a “homicide”) in the name of justice.

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Daniels develops an obsession with us

I’m starting to wonder if Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels seriously wishes he were “one of us.”

DANIELS: Put a cork in it, guv!



By us, I mean a Chicagoan, or at least an Illinoisan.

FOR AS MUCH as he seems to like talking about our state in recent days, he has paid far more attention to Illinois than we ever pay to Indiana - which might as well not exist once one goes east of Indianapolis Boulevard.

What gives guv? Are you really that envious of us? Or are you just trying to gain some attention by dumping on the president’s adopted home state in hopes that it might draw some juice for your own alleged presidential aspirations?

For what it’s worth, I’m referring to comments made last week by Daniels in an interview with The Times, a Munster, Ind.-based newspaper that covers the border region where our two states converge. Those were followed up by comments he made Tuesday during a live interview with WLS-AM where he turned his serious criticism of Illinois’ financial state into jokey rhetoric.

How else to explain his description of Indiana’s proximity to Illinois as being the same as living near Homer Simpson. “You know, the dysfunctional family down the block,” Daniels said while on the air of the Chicago radio station powerful enough that he likely was heard in his own capital city of Indianapolis as well.

THE SMART-ALECK IN me wants to say that if Illinois is the Simpsons, then I would guess that makes Indiana the Flanders family. You know, widower Ned and his two sons, Rod and Tod, whose religious devotion is just so over the top that it puts them out of touch with the real world – and also usually manages to annoy the likes of The Simpsons pastor, Rev. Lovejoy.

They just sort of take up space without contributing much. It can be said for both Flanders AND Indiana.

There's a reason 'Illi' comes before 'ana' in the phrase 'Illiana'



Or perhaps if the dysfunctional Simpsons from Springfield are representative of Illinois, then Indiana is best represented by Shelbyville – the fictional town on the television show whose only significance is that it is near the television version of Springfield.

In short, I could go on and on with wisecracks about Indiana being a second-rate copy of Illinois lacking the very things that make our state one of the most significant in the nation and Indiana just a part of the land mass that comprises the Great Lakes states.

BUT I’M NOT all that interested in making wisecracks. I’ll leave that to Daniels, who is showing us a willingness to use our state to try to bolster his own political standing.

Not that I’m surprised to hear Illinois bashing. It is fairly routine. In fact, some of the nastiest comments I ever have heard have come from Illinois residents themselves – although it usually falls under the guise of Chicago-bashing, and it comes from those residents in the distant outreaches of the state who are too isolated from the city to appreciate the benefits it brings us.

On a serious note, Daniels is bringing up a legitimate issue. Our state’s financial situation is a mess, in large part because too many of our political people have been unwilling to accept the fact that an elected official’s job includes moments when they have to make an “unpopular” but “essential” vote on some issue.

A vote along the lines of the significant increases in income and corporate taxes being suggested to raise the kind of money needed to come close to balancing out the state deficit (that could reach as high as $15 billion by July if NOTHING is done this spring) is something that should have been done years ago.

IN FACT, IF it had been done years ago, the chances are great that such a large increase (looking to raise 66 percent more money) would not have been needed. Chances are also great that if our legislators didn’t act on Tuesday (the final day of activity for the old Legislature), they would have been asked some time this spring to approve an even greater increase.

So in a sense, our political people are worthy of some ridicule – even from someone like Daniels, who seems determined to use it for political spin.

Daniels was the guy who last week was going around saying that the tax increases would be good, FOR INDIANA. He thinks many of those border residents will merely move across the state line, and that many businesses will seek a Hoosier address to get around paying certain taxes.

I know for a fact that some people do think this way. I was born in the part of Chicago and grew up in the surrounding suburbs where Indiana is a daily reality (it’s just the other side of State Line Road), and I know people from my childhood who now live in places like Munster, Merrillville and St. John – because of the perception that it is cheaper.

IT MAY BE by a few bucks. But it also seems that any time those individuals need some unique item or service, they have to resort to coming back to Illinois. My argument is that you get what you pay for, and living in Indiana means you pay a little less because you get significantly less.

There are also too many people who need that proximity to Chicago (even if it’s in the outer suburbs of the collar counties) in a way that Indianapolis will never be essential (personally, I think Peoria is a more significant city).

Daniels’ rhetoric may work on some. Then again, state Sen. William Brady, R-Bloomington, tried using similar rhetoric during one of the debates that was part of the most recent Illinois gubernatorial campaign.

Brady lost. Daniels should learn a lesson from that if he thinks that a Chicago/Illinois bashing will gain him any significant support. If he keeps it up, it will cost him significant (Illinois, even at 20 votes in the Electoral College, still stomps on Indiana’s 11) support.

OR MAYBE DANIELS is just miffed by that one Simpsons’ episode where Homer gets all excited about going to India to train replacement nuclear power plant workers. “Woo Hoo! The Simpsons are going to India! Home of the Indianapolis 500!”

The punch line to that gag being that Indiana isn’t even significant enough to get credit for hosting the one event for which it should receive annual national attention.

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Ya gotta love Judy

TOPINKA: No longer a political has-been

Every time I start to think that political partisanship is becoming too intense and that our society is doomed as a result, Judy Baar Topinka somehow opens her mouth and convinces me that maybe there is hope for us.

Her latest moment came Monday at mid-day when she joined the other Illinois constitutional officers in being sworn in to terms running through January 2015. It is now Illinois Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka. She’s back on our political scene.

IN FACT, IT may well have been Topinka who made the most memorable scene at the inauguration ceremony, conducted on the basketball court of the Prairie Capital Convention Center in Springfield.

First, she had her son, Joe, a major in the Army, administer the oath of office to her (no judges for this Judy). She got the chuckle when, at about 35 seconds into the oath, Judy cut him off by saying, “that’s getting awfully long.”

But I wouldn’t be commenting on Topinka if all she did was make a joke. She also used her address to make a serious point about political partisanship at a time when Democrats have a firm grasp on Illinois state government.

And no, Judy didn’t take a pot shot at Democrats. She included her GOP colleagues as well, claiming that the spirit of bipartisanship is one that has to be shared by government officials of both major political parties if anything meaningful is going to change.

TOPINKA – WHO HAS said during her time as Comptroller-elect that she would use her position that actually pays government bills to interfere with Democratic plans to borrow money if she did not think they were responsible – said everybody is to blame for the mess that is the state’s financial condition these days.

“Both parties have for a very, very long time helped dig this ditch,” she told the crowd gathered for inaugural festivities. “We’re all responsible. Since we all dug, it’s time that we got together to find the courage, the will and the civility to pull ourselves out of that ditch and make Illinois great again.”

You just know that the conservative ideologues of Illinois who plan to portray everything that happens at the Statehouse during the next two years as some sort of conspiracy by Chicago to undermine the “decent” people who live outside of the city were gnashing their teeth.

From the Republican News Watch



They don’t want to hear the honesty behind a statement that the GOP officials haven’t done a thing to alleviate the problem. These are the people who probably think the United Republican Fund is being super when they talk about targeting any Republican official who votes on Tuesday for a plan to raise the state income tax to help alleviate the state’s financial mess.

AS TOPINKA PUT it, “we need to put aside any petty bickering and partisan fights.” She also said, “it’s too easy to blame one (political) party, but it wouldn’t be true.”

After all, those people who backed William Brady’s gubernatorial campaign even though he never seriously addressed the need for more revenue to pay the state’s expenses (it’s pure fantasy to think that only budget cuts can balance the state’s budget) were doing little more than ignoring the issue – preferring to play partisan games of their own that would have harmed the state irrevocably.

Of course, the reason our state’s situation became so bad to begin with was we had a Democratic legislature determined to teach then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich who was really in charge, and a governor who was more than willing to behave in a spiteful manner.

Blame for our mess really does go around to everybody – no matter how much certain officials want to claim it’s, “the other guy’s fault.”

WHICH MEANS TOPINKA’S most controversial statement during her inaugural address (which lasted just over nine minutes) may well be that our state government has “good and honorable people” at its head.

I’d like to think she’s right. In fact, I suspect the only people who are going to have serious disagreement with anything Topinka said on Monday are the ones who rant about “RINOS” and whose sole complaint is that she didn’t share in the partisan rant that they would have desired from the woman who now is the highest-ranking Republican official in Illinois state government.

Personally, I don’t dispute Topinka’s credentials as a member of the Republican Party. This is a woman who once seriously believed that Phil Gramm should be president of the United States. I just wish we could get more officials who were willing to put aside the partisan labels from time to time. Which makes me encouraged by her rhetoric that she’s “not going away until” the state fixes its finances, joking at one point that she may someday be taking an oath of office from her infant grand-daughter, Alexandra.

“That should scare you, okay?” Topinka told the gathering. Actually, it doesn’t, not anywhere near as much as that campaign van that she referred to when she was sworn into office in 1995 – resulting in the “fart joke” that still gets remembered in some political quarters.

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EXTRA: Grace Mary Stern handled gag with hard humor that is no longer possible

STERN: Once the top target

There are those people who want to rant against Sarah Palin these days for the fact that her campaign once used a visual graphic on its website of the crosshairs of a riflescope on a map indicating that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., was an official being “targeted” for political defeat.

They’d say the fact that someone this weekend actually shot Giffords is evidence that Palin somehow provoked this.

NOW I’M NOT willing to go that far, although it does make me wonder just how callous political operatives have become in their use of hunting terminology whenever it comes to identifying candidates for defeat. As for those of you who are now complaining that I'm preaching "political correctness" and can't take a joke, all I have to say is , "Shut Up! You're embarrassing yourself."

A political “target” is all too common a phrase. And somehow, I don’t think that any public official would ever again respond to being targeted anymore in the way that one-time state Sen. Grace Mary Stern did many years ago.

Stern, a Democrat from suburban Highland Park who was Adlai Stevenson’s lieutenant governor running mate when he narrowly lost to James R. Thompson in 1982, had managed to get herself elected in the early 1990s to a state Senate seat from the North Shore suburbs.

She managed to defeat incumbent Roger Keats (remember him, the Republican who lost last year for Cook County Board president to Toni Preckwinkle?). She managed to take a legislative post in an upper-income area that back then was regarded as being as hard-core Republican as any place in Illinois could be.

IT LED TO a lot of jokes from political observers about how Stern’s new nickname was “bulls-eye,” on account of the most-definitely serious GOP effort that would be taken to defeat her. Back in the Election Cycle ’94, Grace Mary was Target Number One.

GIFFORDS: Stern tactic now too risky

Stern’s response to such talk was to tape a paper target to her back whenever she was out in public.

I can remember being at the Statehouse during that ’94 campaign season, seeing Stern walking around with this target on her back – drawing attention to herself, while saying it was her way at laughing off the criticisms.

I can also remember on several occasions the sight of young aides on the Illinois House and state Senate Republican staffs (always the male members, I don’t remember female aides doing this) pretending to hold rifles and fire shots at her whenever she walked by them.

IT ALMOST SEEMED humorous back then. But this is a memory that has turned sordid overnight in light of what happened to Giffords on Saturday.

In the end, Republicans got their wish. Stern, along with many other Democratic officials that year, lost that election cycle – and never again held elective office (she died in 1998 from brain cancer). But somehow, her handling of the political gag seems all the more risky now, since we realize it could very easily have been taken grotesquely out of context by someone as equally deranged as the young man who shot Giffords.

It also shows that while Palin likely did not provoke the incident against Giffords, her campaign definitely is guilty of using poor taste when it comes to its campaign rhetoric.

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Chico fighting back to get larger share of the Latino voter bloc come Feb. 22

To the degree that anyone has paid attention to the Latino voter bloc in Chicago this election cycle, it is to see various polls that show mayoral hopeful Miguel del Valle taking a significant share of it, but no other.

CHICO: Will Latino stature rise?



That is why del Valle’s campaign is the one that gets listed as fourth among the four major candidates, and is the one that most people (including myself) give little chance of succeeding.

BUT THE FACT that del Valle does take a significant share of support and attention from Latino voters could also be what keeps the campaign of Gery Chico from being able to finish in second place – which seems to be the standard that everybody is shooting for.

Get into an April 5 runoff election against Rahm Emanuel, and count on all the ABR’s of the world to cast their ballots for Anybody But Rahm and in their favor.

Which, to me at least, explains the two most recent endorsements that the Chico campaign has made a point of touting. On Friday, the Rev. Wilfredo de Jesus gave up his mayoral campaign, saying he was prepared to back Chico.

That was followed up with the Sunday stunt in which Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill. (whom various polls indicate would have been the mayoral preference of the Chicago Latino voter bloc, had he chosen to run for mayor) gave his own endorsement to Chico.

COULD IT BE that in a desire to dump Emanuel AND get a Latino official elected as mayor of Chicago, the voter bloc is being asked to give up on one of its long-time elected officials?

GUTIERREZ & de JESUS: Does Gery have...



For his part, Chico has not tried running as the “Latino candidate” in this election cycle. In fact, he’s made a point of  touting his ethnic background as including Greek and Lithuanian ties, just as much as the Mexican ethnicity that is in his family tree.

So for those whose idea of “acceptable” ethnicity lies within Europe, they can think of Chico as one of their own, while the growing (and spreading – read the Chicago Sun-Times story from this weekend) Latino population also knows he’s “one of ours” as well.

That could be a lot of votes. When combined with the ABR’s, it could be enough to win a head-to-head election – which means former Gov. Jim Edgar may turn out to be correct when he predicted last year the scenario in which we get a Latino for mayor.

... two new friends?

BUT TO BEAT Rahm, who is going to have the support of the political establishment that was completely comfortable with a “Mayor Daley” for the past 21 years, Chico needs to bolster his support.

If anything, he now needs to become the “Latino candidate.”

Which is why he took the support of de Jesus (the minister whose own views about homosexuality would have made the Rev. James Meeks sound like a “liberal freak”), and was willing to play up the fact that Gutierrez is touting him.

Perhaps becoming the Latino candidate who can also play off the more liberal activists and the white ethnics whose disgust with Emanuel is so intense that they decide to ignore his Latino ties and think of him as a token Lithuanian (or Greek) will enable him to get the support to top Moseley-Braun, who is going to be able to count on enough African-American votes from the segment that is determined to have another black person as mayor of Chicago that she could win – even though recent revelations likely reinforce the notion that no one else will vote for her.

PERSONALLY, IT DOESN’T shock me that de Jesus and Gutierrez chose to back Chico rather than del Valle. The former has some momentum that will let him reach out to enough other kinds of people that he could have a chance to win.

But I also would suspect that de Jesus (who has a position with the city’s Zoning Board of Appeals) and the Congressman both have their own amount of influence within the Latino segment of the city that competes with the influence del Valle has locally.

If anything, Chico – although he has run the Chicago Public Schools, the City Colleges of Chicago and the Chicago Park district – is not as tied into these neighborhood political ties.

DEL VALLE: What are his chances now?



That probably means, in the minds of Gutierrez and de Jesus, that their local influence remains the same with a “Mayor Chico,” while a “Mayor del Valle” would impact their influence in a negative manner. They’d be less important.

SO WHILE THE two “major” stories of this mayoral election cycle have been Emanuel’s residential status and the desire of black activists to pick a consensus candidate who is African-American, perhaps we ought to start focusing on a third story – one involving the Latino voter bloc and whether Chico takes enough of it to have a chance to win.

Or will it remain solidly enough behind del Valle that neither man wins, and we get the runoff election between Emanuel and Moseley-Braun – the scenario that definitely would show us just how much has Chicago overcome racial hostility when it comes to electoral politics.

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A WEEK IN REVIEW: Why we could still have Ill. death penalty on Wednesday

Considering the reality of partisan politics, I won’t be the least bit surprised if one week from now, we in Illinois still have a capital crimes statute on our state law books.

I make that statement at a time when Illinois has come closer than ever before to abolishing the penalty of death as legitimate for certain violent crimes.

REGARDLESS, WE’LL ACTUALLY know by Tuesday night what will happen on this issue. For we are in the “lame duck” portion of the General Assembly session. Wednesday at Noon is when the new Legislature elected back on Nov. 2 will take control.

So if it isn’t done by then, the whole process has to start over.

So that’s why I don’t get excited at the sight of headlines in the Friday newspapers that say the Illinois House of Representatives voted to abolish capital punishment. We still have to see what the Illinois Senate does. Then, on to Gov. Pat Quinn – who has been reluctant to say he supports any of this legislative effort on the issue.

For while it seems that state Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, wouldn’t mind seeing the death penalty wither away in Illinois, not all of his legislative chamber’s members feel the same way.

CONSIDERING THAT HE is now trying to twist arms to get them to vote for a proposed increase in the state share of the income tax (from 3 percent to 5.25 percent – raising 75 percent more money for the state), it is questionable whether Cullerton will have the desire to do an equally intense arm twisting for capital punishment, particularly since the tax hike is related to resolving the state's severe financial problems. That issue MUST be addressed. Capitol punishment would be a luxury if there is time.

VERSCHOORE: Wise counseling

While the old Legislature (the one that ceases to exist as of Tuesday) is going to be doing business throughout the weekend and all the way up until their final day, somehow I won’t be surprised if this somehow gets lost in the shuffle (although I’d truly enjoy being wrong on this point).

The Illinois House vote did, however, give us a bright moment – learning that state Rep. Pat Verschoore, D-Milan, was the legislator credited with changing his mind to support abolishment, thereby creating the 60^th vote needed for passage. Verschoore says his wife’s opposition to capital punishment was a factor in his decision. So should we wind up doing away with a death penalty in Illinois, perhaps we owe a debt of gratitude to Charlene, the representative’s wife of 46 years.

So what else was notable about the first full week of 2011?



Moseley-Braun: Bigger than it had to be

BIPARTISAN TAX TWITS:  Future political people who experience personal indignation about making their income tax returns public ought to keep the names of “Jason Plummer” and “Carol Moseley-Braun” in mind before getting all snitty.

The whole concept of releasing one’s returns was meant to be a token gesture by political people that gives some superficial information about one’s finances. But Plummer, the GOP lieutenant governor candidate last year, and Moseley-Braun, who is running for mayor this year, both tried to claim they had a right to privacy.

Plummer remained stubborn all the way through his failed campaign, while Moseley-Braun ultimately backed down. But the returns she has released have been so closely scrutinized that we now fully appreciate how unsuccessful she has been in business since leaving the federal government’s employ back in 2000.

The lesson here is that if Moseley-Braun had just turned over the returns without having to be prodded, chances are good they would have received a superficial review and we already would have filed them away – never to be seriously looked at again.

WHO’S KIDDING WHOM:  President Barack Obama went ahead this week and picked mayoral brother (and son) William Daley to be his new chief of staff. Considering that he spent recent years working for JP Morgan, it has certain progressive types convinced that the president is pandering to the right by picking a Wall Street type.

That concept has me laughing hysterically. The idea that the way to pander to conservatives and to business interests is to pick the Son of Hizzoner, Richard J. Daley, who comes from the land that doesn’t succumb to rural conservative ideologues, is so blatantly absurd – just as much as those people who honestly want to believe that Obama is literally a socialist.

What this does is mean that Obama will be bashed by the right for picking a “Chicago Machine hack” to run the federal government just as much as the left for picking a guy whose income in recent years has been around $5 million annually.

Does this mean that by ticking off all the ideologues, Obama may very well have found the proper person to run the White House staff for him for the next two years? Most likely.



RYAN: Free for a day?

WHAT MORE DOES HE WANT?:  Former Gov. George Ryan has applications to both the U.S. District Court and to the warden at the federal correctional center at Terre Haute, Ind., seeking to be released from prison for awhile so he can be with his wife – who is dying at a hospital in the Ryans’ hometown of Kankakee.



Yet federal prosecutors who would rather see nothing that shows anything resembling leniency toward Ryan (fearing that it taints their record of a conviction against him) point out that he WAS released on Wednesday, and got to spend two hours with former first lady Lura Lynn.

During that time, he was escorted by U.S. marshals, and Ryan’s attorney, (also) former Gov. James R. Thompson, said it was federal officials who insisted that no word be given out about the fact that Ryan got a one-day break from his prison time.

Federal prosecutors say the fact that he got the one-day release means that action can be taken without a more wide-ranging court order. Yet if Lura Lynn’s period of illness extends into any length of time, it would only make sense that a court order would be the responsible way to go – rather than having a warden continually approving one-day visits between Terre Haute and Kankakee (roughly a four-hour drive each way).

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