Gaining respect for Mr. Speaker

I carry a Nokia Lumia smartphone these days, and will admit it comes in useful when it comes to work.

MADIGAN: No phone?!?

I’m not anchored to a desk with a landline waiting to hear from people. Yes, there literally have been times when someone returned my call, and I conducted an interview with a “source” while standing in an aisle of a supermarket.

BUT I HAVE to admit there are times I yearn for the days when I didn’t carry any type of telephone on my person. It wasn’t that long ago. I was a hold-out for many years!

I have to confess to feeling a little bit of admiration these days for Michael Madigan. The almighty and powerful “Mr. Speaker” of the Illinois House of Representatives has gained attention for the fact that he allegedly does not have his own personal cellphone.

The issue came up when Gov. Pat Quinn was to meet Tuesday with the leaders of the Illinois Senate and House of Representatives to try to figure out what can be done to resolve the problems confronting state government when it comes to funding pension programs.

Madigan didn’t bother to show up.

THERE HAD BEEN some hope that Madigan, who had a prior commitment at the time that Quinn wanted to meet in his office at the Thompson Center state government building, could somehow “call in” to the meeting and participate in that way.

Except that he doesn’t have a cellphone, and apparently decided that nothing of significance was going to take place at such a gathering. So he was just a no-show.



SORVINO: Could he play Madigan in movie?

The tidbit from Quinn that Madigan doesn’t have a cellphone has triggered countless criticism from the people who spend way too much of their time on the Internet posting their views to other peoples’ opinions.

It’s a generational thing, particularly from people who can’t conceive of life without having some sort of gadget on their person. How can anyone possibly think they can exist in our times without having a phone that makes them completely accessible to all at virtually every moment of the day?

I HAVE READ people who compare Madigan to the “Paulie Cicero” character from the film Goodfellas – played by actor Paul Sorvino, he was the gangster boss who refused to have a telephone placed in his own home and instead had all his calls received by other people who then had to pass messages along to him.

Heck, in the novel The Godfather, it is explained that Don Corleone didn’t like to talk on telephones because he feared someone would listen in and somehow “rearrange” his words to be used as evidence against him.

Madigan the “mob” boss of the Illinois House “family” is the image that some people are trying to put on him, just because Madigan doesn’t have a phone on him – preferring to borrow a phone from someone around him if he has an absolute need to make a quick call!

That just sounds way too over the top to be believable.

BESIDES, LIKE I already stated, a part of me remembers with some fondness the days when I didn’t carry a cellphone with me. I also remember a former work colleague who once tossed a pager into the Chicago River, claiming, “It beeped one too many …… times.”

There’s a certain sanity to the idea of focusing one’s attention on the here-and-now and what we’re supposed to be doing – instead of being available to anybody who thinks they can suddenly snatch away our attention with their phone calls.



QUINN: Needs to lead on pension problem

Particularly when those calls are usually just their efforts to impose their trivialities into our lives. Yes, I would think much more of modern communications technology if I didn’t see the trivial messages it often is used to deliver. So to the degree that Madigan is actively trying to maintain his privacy and avoid the trivialities, I can respect him.

Now if only he and Quinn and Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, could take their heads out of their collective behind and address the pension funding issue that threatens to bankrupt Illinois, then I’d have real respect for our officials. Because right now, I fear that the special session Quinn called for on June 19 is going to amount to a whole lot of nothing.

  -30-

EXTRA: Loss of photographers not about adapting to new technology as much as ol’ fashioned union-busting

A trekkie on the picket line?

It has been a week since the Chicago Sun-Times and all of its sister suburban papers made it public that it was letting go its entire photography staff.

They try to claim it is a matter of adapting to new technology and accepting that people want more video clips as part of their news reports on the Internet.

YET IT’S JUST a little too hard to swallow. I’d accept this a lot more easier if those Wrapports types who own the newspapers would just admit that a priority of theirs is getting rid of those photographers who were covered by a Chicago Newspaper Guild contract.

Because a lot of the people who are going to get hired in the future to accommodate all this desire for video clips are going to be younger types, and the company will probably go out of its way to ensure that the guild (a.k.a., the dreaded union) will never get their paws on these new people. Otherwise, at least a few of those photographic veterans would have been retained, and retrained.

Maybe the Sun-Times didn’t call out the cops to crack heads open when the photographers and their supporters picketed the newspaper’s offices Thursday morning. But the desire to not have to deal with a union was just as much a motivation as it was at a place like the old Republic Steel – where East Side neighborhood residents still pay tribute to the strikers who were killed on Memorial Day 76 years ago.

So it was totally appropriate that Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis was among those who picketed the Sun-Times on Thursday, although I’m sure she also gains from the public recognition she will receive.

CTU boss Karen Lewis takes on new labor cause

 

AFTER ALL, SHE got herself on television, and that bolsters her name recognition for her own future causes.

Whereas the Sun-Times’ recognition? They got professional smart-aleck Stephen Colbert to do a segment that on his Comedy Central program that made the newspaper look rather ridiculous.

And for what it’s worth, the difference in images in the newspaper is notable – particularly since the bulk of the pictures now appearing in the pages of the Sun-Times seem to be from the Associated Press.

As for this particular posting, the images accompanying it were shot with my own smartphone. And I’ll be the first to admit they look horrid; just as bad as they do when they get used on television newscasts. But this could be the future, if this particular trend catches on.

  -30-

30 more days for ‘concealed carry’ not big deal, no matter what ‘gun nuts’ say

The Court of Appeals that ordered Illinois to have a “concealed carry” law in place by Sunday is managing to offend the conservative interests that want the law – for reasons that go a long way toward showing their motivations in the first place.

A judicial panel issued a stay of its Sunday deadline (180 days from when it issued its original order that the Illinois Legislature enact something resembling a “concealed carry” law), saying the state can now have another 30 days.

ALTHOUGH THE COURT made a point of saying, “no further extensions” will be granted. So July 9 is IT in terms of the deadline.

This bothers the firearms advocates, who probably already were planning the parties to celebrate the enactment of the law they have long desired – even if it is a compromise measure that doesn’t come close to the mentality they wanted enacted into Illinois law against the will of the majority of the state’s population.

I’ve been reading a lot of Internet commentary (all anonymous, of course) from people who say that 180 days was enough time, and that they just want something imposed now!

Not that it means anything – except that some people really don’t understand the way government works. Either that, or they want government to be some sort of authoritarian state that always rules in their favor – or more accurately, against anyone who disagrees with them.

THAT’S JUST UN-AMERICAN. Which is why the appeals court didn’t think twice before issuing the extension this week that was requested by the Illinois attorney general’s office.

The reason that it is not ridiculous to grant the extension is because the heavy lifting of the legislative process has been completed – the state Senate and Illinois House of Representatives have both passed a bill.

They did so in the final hours of the spring legislative session that ended on Friday, along with hundreds of other bills that same day.

In short, that’s quite a backlog. There was not a legislative aide who had to load up a wheelbarrow with bills and run them over to the governor’s office that same day. It takes time for the bills to work their way to the governor – who then gets 60 days to consider what to do.

WITHOUT AN EXTENSION, there’s a very good chance that the bill would have just been sent to Gov. Pat Quinn for consideration. So he wouldn’t have had much of a chance to review it before signing it into law.

Does it really sound right that Quinn would be expected to sign into law a measure immediately upon its receipt? Only to the social conservatives who want this issue enacted into law as a gesture of the majority having to accept something that they detest.

So now, the process can play itself out, and Quinn can consider the issue in due time; just like it will on the issue of “gay marriage” where the bill is still pending because a political suicide vote was not taken last week. On firearms, Quinn’s still going to be rushed, since he likely would have until mid-August to consider the issue – except that the court has now set July 9 as a deadline.

And for those who are arguing that Quinn ought to know what the bill is about, keep in mind that our political people really do trust each other so little that the governor’s staff will be reading through the bill to ensure that legislators didn’t slip something unexpected into the measure.

SO AS FAR as people trying to predict what Quinn will do, the governor probably is being honest by refusing to say much of anything.

Because even though it would make a certain amount of sense for him to just sign the measure into law (and claim the courts pressured him into it), Quinn is just contrarian enough to use his “veto” power to try to make a few changes.

Of course, an amendatory veto would mean the Legislature’s return in November to consider whether gubernatorial changes should be accepted, or not! Which would really infuriate the firearms proponents, since it would mean they’d have to wait even a few more months before their precious gun law letting them carry holstered pistols in public for alleged self-protection could take effect.

Considering how many years (if not decades) it takes for issues such as expanded gambling, a new Chicago-area airport or pension funding reform to get a serious debate, it still sounds like the equivalent of a legislative rush-job that will end up in their favor.

  -30-

A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): Jackson’s health public, or a secret?

In just under one month, Jesse Jackson, Jr., is going to face sentencing for the criminal charges he pleaded guilty to as they relate to his use of campaign funds for personal expenditures.


JACKSON: Public, or private?

Attorneys for Jackson, the former Congressman from Chicago’s Far South Side and surrounding suburbs, have made it clear they want his health issues (he’s been diagnosed as being bipolar) to be a factor in what a federal judge for the District of Columbia takes into account when imposing a sentence.

BUT THOSE ATTORNEYS this week made it clear there are limits as to how much of his health data ought to be public. They want part of a sentencing memorandum to be sealed to the public.

The parts related to his health; specifically the parts that contain letters written by doctors who provide medical details of just how ill Jackson truly is.

There have been enough people who oppose Jackson for politically partisan reasons who hate the idea that health and physical fitness will be a factor at all. I’m sure they’re prepared to start ranting about how this is some sort of cover-up.

As though they won’t be happy unless they get personal details that they can then use to try to humiliate Jackson further than he already feels.

WHICH MEANS WE have to figure whether we agree with the attorneys, who this week said that releasing those doctor letters would, “disclose unnecessarily the defendant’s and his family member’s medical information, diagnoses and treatment to the public.”

Personally, I’m amazed that the Mayo Clinic (where Jackson went for some treatment prior to his indictment) provided as much detail as they did about bipolar disorder.

Although I’m pretty sure some people (the ones who think that the potential for a five-year prison term that Jackson faces isn’t sufficient) are going to complain no matter how this situation turns out on July 1 – the date that Jackson and spouse Sandi (the former 7^th Ward alderman) are scheduled for sentencing.

What else is notable in the land along Lake Michigan where two mediocre-to-sorry baseball teams prevail?

MOVING ON?:  First Crete. Now Joliet.

... except for detention

The latter city this week said it was no longer interested in being the location for a detention center designed for people who face federal immigration law violations.

Federal officials want to hire Nashville-based Corrections Corp. of America to build five privately-run facilities to hold people facing deportation – including one in the Midwest near Chicago.

But every single site considered thus far has aroused the anger of locals who don’t want any such structure built near them. Combined with the people who hate the idea of privately-run facilities for these offenses, it’s a wonder if any place will ever be willing to have a jail-like facility located nearby.

LET THEM COME. HECKLE THEM INSTEAD:  The Gay Pride Parade will be held this year on June 30, and the question is whether any political people will be seen among its participants.

 

They usually are. But there’s a petition drive these days from people who say they want the elected officials kept out – on account of the fact that the Illinois House of Representatives could not be bothered to vote on the measure that would have legitimized marriage for gay couples.

Personally, I think that’s short-sighted. Keep in mind that the Illinois state Senate approved the measure (back on Valentine’s Day). Perhaps any political gesture should be aimed at the Illinois House.

Or better yet, let the political people march in the parade – if they have the nerve. Because I suspect the boos, heckles and taunts they would receive would make for a very uncomfortable environment. Maybe that’s what it will take to make them realize the short-sightedness of their actions last week.

DEFINE ABORTION!:  Rev. Michael Pfleger of the St. Sabina Parish is used to saying things that manage to tick people off. Although I suspect he will upset, and confuse, many interests when it comes to abortion.

FLEGER: Looking out for poor, regardless of who's offended

Pfleger, who spoke Monday night at Governors State University about how he thinks our society these days is doing harmful things to children, used the “A” word. Although he didn’t define it as a medical procedure.

He says that corporate entities, schools and others commit acts all the time that harm the chances of children to grow to adulthood and succeed in life, and he considers those just as bad.

“Whatever harms a child from growing to term, that is an abortion,” he said.

  -30-

Differing perspective on “white boys”

It never fails to amuse me the way some people have trouble comprehending the fact that black people in our society have a slightly differing perspective on things than others do.

RUSH: Too loose w/ the lip?

They’re usually the first to scream “reverse racism” (or some other term) when black people don’t quite see things the same.

WHICH IS WHY some people are trying to make an issue over the fact that Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., called out Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., when the latter came up with an unrealistic idea for dealing with the problem of street gangs.

The senator would like the federal government to do the equivalent of declaring war on the Gangster Disciples, even if it means using force to arrest them all.

Rush, who was once a member of the activist Black Panther group that the government tried to take such an approach with back in the early 1970s, went so far as to lambaste Kirk in the Chicago Sun-Times for offering an, “empty, simplistic, unworkable approach,” and called Kirk himself an “elitist white boy.”

The Chicago Tribune on Monday went so far as to call Rush’s comments “repugnant” and say that he ought to be working with Kirk – instead of criticizing him.

COMPARED TO OTHERS who have been bashing Rush, the Tribune is being rather polite, courteous and respectful.

Because it seems there are some people who want to believe that it would be appropriate to have our officials start violating rights of individuals who aren’t like themselves. As though they believe the Constitution is only for themselves.

I know one individual who usually shows large amounts of common sense. But a few weeks ago, he started talking about gang problems and suggested that all suspected gang members be put on board a boat that should then be sunk in the depths of Lake Michigan.

KIRK: A solution, or another problem?

It’s nonsense to take that notion seriously. But it’s just as ridiculous as the Kirk talk about unleashing the powers of the government against these particular individuals, since street gang affiliations are rarely so simply that we can readily identify who is what.

ALTHOUGH SOME PEOPLE now want to react as though Kirk has some sort of logic in his babbling, and that Rush is just looking to provoke trouble.

Ignoring the fact that Rush speaks from a perspective of people who have seen the power of the government turned against them, and realizes how harmful this could be.

No one should think this commentary is a defense of a street gang’s activity. It isn’t. Then again, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, in fact, our whole form of government, is meant to protect everybody.

It is not supposed to be selective. If it were, we’d be just as bad as the nations of the world our society so often likes to criticize!

BUT THERE WILL be those who won’t want to hear that. They’re going to latch onto that “white boy” phrase and try to claim that it is Rush who started the dispute.

It’s way too similar to the Democratic primary for governor back in 1998, where former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris (whose record on paper was more substantial than anyone else he ran against) dismissed his challengers as “unqualified white boys.”

He was offended that so many people were willing and eager to put those challengers on an equal plane as himself. The offense experienced by potential voters to Burris’ nerve was a factor in his eventual loss to now-former Rep. Glenn Poshard (whose inexperience in dealing with anything urban caused his eventual loss in the general election that year to George Ryan).

Now, we’re living through something similar with Rush – although I doubt the backlash will hurt the long-time Congressman who remains popular with his South Side voter base.

IF ANYTHING HURTS Rush, it’s going to be his increasing age.

Although I suspect his willingness to express that “black” viewpoint on this issue (although I’m sure there also are black people who disagree) will ensure that those voters will be willing to keep Rush in Congress until he decides to step down on his own.

  -30-

A new airport? It’s about time!

I’m at the point where I won’t believe there will be a new airport in rural Will County just north of Peotone until I actually see a flight take off from its runways.

Because I have been a reporter-type person long enough to know that this proposed third major airport for the Chicago metro area was supposed to have been built a long time ago – and should have been fully built and up and running by now.

INSTEAD, ALL WE have in that area of eastern Will County (the portion that the political people in Joliet don’t like to acknowledge) is farm fields and dirt roads – with the occasional sign showing nothing more than a black airplane silhouette with a red slash across it.

This is an issue that has dragged on for so long that it is pathetic. It is something that our political people ought to be ashamed of.

Literally, I can remember the late 1980s when the Bi-State Commission of Illinois and Indiana officials was reviewing four airport sites (including Peotone) and the general timeline was approval of a site by about 1991, construction beginning a year or two afterward and taking place in earnest through the mid-1990s.

The first flight from the first stages of the airport would have been in 1999, with serious numbers of flights taking place by 2002 or 2003. And by about 2010, the final stages of the airport would have been complete.

THEN AGAIN, MAYBE this timeline was put together by a collection of Chicago Cubs fans who seriously think that ball club is on the verge of becoming the 21^st Century’s dominant force in baseball – instead of extending their mediocrity well into the new century.

Because our political people in Illinois are of the mentality that there’s no point in rushing into anything!

I bring all of this up because of the fact that a bill actually slipped through the General Assembly at the end of last week. It now goes to Gov. Pat Quinn – who has made it clear he will sign it into law.

Depending on where one comes from, this is the bill that provides state funding for Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s pipe dream of a sports arena near McCormick Place, or for a new fertilizer plant near Tuscola.

OR, AS THE governor thinks of it, the bill that lets the Illinois Department of Transportation create the government entity that will manage a new airport that will (in theory) go along with O’Hare International and Midway airports to handle Chicago’s aviation needs.

Much of the stink that has kept the idea of a new airport on hold for the past couple of decades has been a brawl over who should actually run any such facility. If it were really just a matter of rural residents in the area not liking an airport on their land, government officials would have had no qualms about squashing their fears.

Will County officials have always wanted to think that any new airport was THEIRS, while city officials have always wanted to ensure that any new airport was under their domain! State control probably makes just as much sense – although it likely bothers everybody else.

For Quinn, in praising the Legislature on Friday, made reference to 11,000 construction jobs and 14,000 people employed at a future airport. Everybody wants to have a say in determining how those jobs get distributed.

WE’RE STILL QUITE some time away from actually seeing construction start – although the state has purchased much of the land in the area for airport development.

What may be reality in a couple of decades, and what should have been reality by now. Map provided by Illinois Department of Transportation/FAA

 

But my hope is that we’ll have a real-live airport in that area sometime around 2030 – which is around the time I should be thinking in terms of retirement (unless business interests and somebody’s desire to improve their financial bottom line tries to put me out to pasture some time prior to then).

It will only be a couple of decades too late!

  -30-

And we seriously wonder why Illinois’ Legislature can’t get anything done?

Would you wear this?

Who’s lazier?

A Puerto Rico resident eating a Whopper at Burger King. Or a member of the Illinois General Assembly when it comes to pension funding reform.

AS RIDICULOUS AS it is that Burger King marked its 50^th anniversary of existence in the Caribbean island commonwealth by handing out 50 special devices that allow someone to eat a Whopper without having to touch it with their own hands or lift it to their own mouths, I’d have to argue that our very own Legislature is more embarrassing!

In fact, a part of me wonders if our legislators ought to have those burger-holders to keep their mouths otherwise occupied. Otherwise, they concoct, and spew forth, with ideas such as the way that the General Assembly contemplated to get out of having to make a decision on the problem of providing adequate pension funding.

Earlier this week, the state Senate did the political equivalent of sticking a shiv in the back of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago. They rejected a bill that contained his preference for a pension funding bill.

Of course, there’s still the alternative preferred by their leader, Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago. That’s the one the unions like because it doesn’t require as much of a sacrifice, but also doesn’t provide as much relief and has some thinking it is totally inadequate.

THAT IS WHAT inspired state Rep. Elaine Nekritz, D-Northbrook, to say that the General Assembly ought to pass Cullerton’s preference, AND resurrect the Madigan measure.

NEKRITZ: Willing to let courts decide

Pass them both. Then create a situation where the courts (the same ones that issued the ruling that put Illinois in a position of having to consider “concealed carry” by June 9) make the final decision.

Talk about being lazy. Even moreso than thinking it an ordeal to lift a hamburger to one’s own mouth. If THAT was the alternative, then we're better off that the General Assembly did nothing before adjourning for the summer.

Because the whole point of having legislators is for them to make the tough decisions about the crucial issues confronting our society. The courts are meant to be the check-and-balance that prevents legislators and the governor from going too far.

THEY’RE NOT MEANT to be the governing body, in and of themselves!

Illinois' high court not the people we want creating our laws

 

It makes me think that Moody’s Investors Service – which on Friday said Illinois’ credit rating WILL drop if nothing was done by the Legislature on pension funding reform – ought to ding our lawmakers just for being generally lazy. Perhaps Gov. Pat Quinn will provide that "ding" when he meets with the Legislature's leaders next week to discuss this very issue?

Besides, I suspect if the courts do have to resolve this situation, we’re going to wind up with an outcome that everybody will truly despise. Just like nobody was happy about the “concealed carry” measure about the bill that finally got both state Senate and Illinois House approval on Friday.

There’s also the fact that the parliamentary maneuvering that would have to take place for such a dual-approval to occur would become so complex, and that it would take so long for the courts to resolve the issue that it might extend beyond our current Legislature’s life.

THERE’S JUST TOO much that can go wrong. Our legislators need to take action for themselves. Not rely on someone else to do their work for them.

Of course, what lets legislators think they can even get away with this is the fact that so much of the public attention on Friday was focused on a completely different issue – legal marriage for gay couples.

While I’m writing this very commentary, I’m also watching the Blue Room Stream website that allows people to watch the Legislature (in my case, the Illinois House) live. It also has a running commentary from viewers who want to express their thoughts in real-time.

And the comments I’m reading are overwhelmingly from people who want these legislators to just Shut up, already, and get on (both for, and against) with gay marriage!!!

Offending people, no matter what they do. Our Illinois House in action

 

MAYBE NEKRITZ THOUGHT she and her legislative colleagues could get away with a political punt on the pension funding issue because everybody else would be distracted by gay marriage (which never did happen, but will resurrect itself when the Legislature returns to session come November) and concealed carry and maybe even gambling expansion (another ultimate non-issue) and that moment of silence legislators did for the deceased firefighters in Houston?

And then, political people wonder why the public is less-than-trusting of their professional abilities – thinking of them as a bigger joke than someone from Puerto Rico actually using one of those ridiculous hands-free Whopper holders!

  -30-