Is Trump’s word worth anything?

Just a thought that has been bopping about my brain quite a bit in recent days; what if President Donald J. Trump is just toying with the mindset of 40892-424?

TRUMP: What will he do with Rod?

That number, of course, being of federal Bureau of Prisons inmate Rod Blagojevich, whom Trump last week started up a public stink about by suggesting he’s inclined to consider clemency for the one-time Illinois governor.

FOR WHAT IT’S worth, Blagojevich this week formally filed the request to the president seeking some form of pardon from the 14-year prison term he’s now serving – and of which he has completed about half.

Now, it’s truly in the hands of Trump as to what will happen.

Trump may have spewed a lot of trash talk last week about how Blagojevich was merely guilty of saying stupid things and how he thinks the prison term is excessive – even though the legal system all the way up through the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled in ways to uphold the conviction and sentence.

But from the three-plus decades of time I have spent writing about government, politics and the legal system, one thing I have learned is that some people truly are evidence of the cliché “talk is cheap.”

AND IF YOU look at this objectively, Trump has already gained everything he would expect to get out of granting any form of clemency to Blagojevich.

If he were to decide to do nothing and leave Blagojevich in the Colorado-based prison where he has been held since 2011, I don’t think he’d suffer a thing.

If anything, he’d probably gain a bit in the public estimation of the people who are inclined to want Rod to rot in prison for the full 14 years of his sentence (they’re probably offended that his scheduled release in May 2014 means he gets one year, four months of time off for good behavior).

BLAGOJEVICH:Pondering his fate

As for the idea that Trump went back on his word, the majority of people already think Donald is an untrustworthy character (remember the 3 million more in 2016 who wanted “President Hillary R. Clinton?”). His reputation wouldn’t suffer in the least.

THE THOUGHT THAT Trump is merely trying to stir up trouble, particularly amongst those in the Chicago political establishment who would have a personal interest in the Blagojevich case’s eventual outcome, has been bopping about my brain ever since Trump opened his mouth on the issue.

It stepped up even further this week when White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporter-type people the president hasn’t made up his mind about what to do with Blagojevich – no matter what he said the week before.

“The president hasn’t made a final decision on that,” she said. “But as you know, the president doesn’t base his decisions off the criticism of others, but on what he thinks is the right decision to make, and that’s what he’ll base it on.”

So was last week just an effort to stir up rage and anger amongst Chicago Democrats – almost none of whom actually voted for him two years ago?

BECAUSE THE THING that consistently has had me wondering is, “What does Trump think he gains from granting any form of clemency (even a commutation of a prison sentence to ‘time served’) to Blagojevich.

The one trend that has cropped up in seeing the way Trump uses presidential pardon power is that he uses it to reward his allies. Granting a pardon to one-time Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio so he could avoid serving jail time allowed Trump to protect a person who shared his extremist attitudes on immigration – while also offending the people whom Trump has been trying to demonize since ‘Day One’ of his campaigning.

What high  court thought no longer really matters

Even though Blagojevich was far from anything resembling a social liberal on issues, to the ideologues inclined to like Trump, that makes not one bit of difference.

Although if Trump really wanted to perform some form of “justice,” he’d let the Blagojevich request for clemency sit idly by and do nothing with it. Just like Blagojevich was the guy who, as governor, rejected 93 percent of the just over 1,000 clemency requests he acted on – while doing nothing with another 2,800 requests from people whose last chance at relief was gubernatorial consideration.

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Are we in for five months’ worth of annoying broadcast campaign ads?

We’re five months away from Election Day for Illinois governor, yet the two major party candidates don’t think it’s the least bit too early to start tormenting us with their broadcast ads attacking each other.

BLAGOJEVICH: A gubernatorial issue?

Both Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democratic challenger J.B. Pritzker came out with attack ads this week – Pritzker wants to remind us of how inept Rauner has been in terms of the state being able to come up with a budget in a timely manner.

WHILE RAUNER WENT for the jugular – the tape recordings made by federal investigators of Pritzker talking with former Gov. Rod Blagojevich on the telephone that provided the Chicago Tribune with the details of the stories they wrote earlier this year to imply Pritzker was a bigot against black people will now be heard in brief advertising spots.

Specifically, we get to hear Blagojevich making tacky jokes about Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who back in 2008 was the outage of the right wing because the man who was pastor of then-Sen. Barack Obama’s church in Chicago was the one who included the line “God Damn America” in some of his sermons – actually a reference to some of the racial intolerance that has been tolerated within our society.

It seems Blagojevich joked about making Wright his choice to be U.S. Senator to succeed Obama when the latter was elected president. It was a tacky joke, kind of lame.

For the record, Pritzker thought the gag was funny. We hear him say it is “hilarious.”

RAUNER: Budget ineptitude?

IT DOESN’T REALLY tell us anything about J.B. It’s a trivial tidbit.

But I’m sure it has the potential to grab at the emotions of people moreso than the initial Pritzker spot – which tells the story of a construction worker who wound up losing his job because of the fact that the state went for so many years without being able to pass budgets.

Which meant that state government for several years was unable to go through its daily operations.

That didn’t happen this year, because for once Rauner put aside his ideological fantasies (most of which are meant to undermine labor unions that do work with state government) and signed off on a budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

PRITZKER: Racial hang-ups?

WHICH IS WHAT I’m sure Rauner wants us to remember. Forget about all those past years.

And remember a 10-year-old moment of stupidity whose only real point is to remind us that Pritzker for many years was a prominent financial supporter of Democratic candidates for government office.

We could make similar arguments against Rauner, who for many years prior to running for office himself was a prominent financial supporter of those political candidates who preferred to run under the symbol of the elephant, rather than the donkey.

The real point, of course, is that the campaigns now feel the need to start tormenting us with their rants and rhetoric. For the next five months, exactly (that’s how long we have from now to Election Day).

IT DOESN’T SURPRISE me that Rauner would bring up Blagojevich – who is back in the news again on account of President Donald Trump’s suggestions that he’s willing to grant some form of clemency to Rod that would let him out of prison some six years early.

TRUMP: Will he impact Ill. gov. race?

I would have thought he would have waited to see exactly what Trump chooses to do. Because it could wind up that the kind of people Rauner is hoping turn out to re-elect him as governor are the same ones who think highly of Trump – and won’t really like anyone suggesting that the man whom their guy (a.k.a., the Donald) is supporting is really just a political dirt bag.

But perhaps Rauner is just desperate enough to get in the first serious punch of the general election campaign cycle. Which he has managed to do.

One potential plus – it could force many of us to ignore television so as to avoid all the inanities. Admit it, turning off the TV set and finding something else to do is something that would benefit all of us.

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Political arrogance from our presidents! or, Who’s the bigger boob?

It’s got the potential to be the ultimate loaded politically partisan question – who is the bigger nitwit these days; Bill Clinton, or Donald Trump?

TRUMP: Finds self 'not guilty'

Both men, it would appear, have something of a disconnect with the real world, what with the way they are trying to dismiss the criticisms they often get hit with from the public.

IN THE CASE of the incumbent president, Trump is attacking those people who want to see the special counsel Russia probe into his conduct take him down. Which isn’t the least bit surprising.

But Trump is tying this issue in with the concept of all the pardons he has talked about issuing, saying that if conditions really became dire for him, he could easily issue a pardon for himself.

“As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong.” Or so wrote Trump on his Twitter account (and people seriously wonder why I think of the president as the ‘Twit who Tweets’).

For it seems that our president truly thinks he can run the nation (and possibly, the world) in the same way he ran The Trump Organization – barking out orders and expecting minions to carry them out, unquestioned.

OF COURSE, BACK in those days, Trump was running a company that erected gaudy buildings and garish casinos – meaning Trump’s reckless behavior really didn’t impact anybody.

Now, Trump is in a position to do great harm – and he wants to have the right to wave away any moments when he chooses to cut through the red tape in inappropriate ways.

Hence, he thinks he can pardon himself. Even though one of his attorneys (former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani) himself publicly questioned whether Trump should think in terms of using such authority.

CLINTON: Tired of talking about Monica

Think of it this way. Former President Richard Nixon, who had to resign the presidency to avoid impeachment by Congress, had to count on his successor to grant him a pardon to avoid any conviction and incarceration – whom his biggest critics desperately wanted to see happen.

EVEN NIXON DIDN’T think he had a right to pardon himself to make his “Watergate” critics shut up. Even he realized that such an overbearing act would backfire ever so badly.

Think of the presidential clemency authority in these terms. How outraged would the people who are now Trump’s biggest backers have been if former President Bill Clinton had tried to avoid the whole impeachment debacle of 1998 by issuing himself a pre-emptive pardon.

Impeachment was definitely an ideologue act back then, and the people who pushed for his removal from office were doing so for the wrong reasons. But listening to Clinton now get upset when people bring up his behavior with a White House intern and compare it to actions of sexual harassment against other women sounds as ridiculously self-righteous as anything Trump has ever said.

“I dealt with it 20 years ago,” Clinton said during an interview with NBC and “The Today Show,” adding, “I’ve tried to do a good job since then, and with my life and with my work.”

PERSONALLY, I’VE ALWAYS thought that the appropriate judge for Clinton’s behavior back then was his wife. If Hillary had wanted to take it out on him publicly and ruin him, she should have been granted permission to do so.

NIXON: Pardoning self for Watergate?

The fact that she is able to get past this ought to be a sign for the rest of us. Except for those ideologues whose real hang-up is that Clinton ever got elected in the first place, and that they were unable to defeat him at the polling place.

Just as it kind of seems like Trump wants to erase the fact that some 3 million more people in this country wanted a Hillary Clinton presidency instead of him.

So does Bill Clinton owe an apology to Monica Lewinsky? Maybe! Although I’d say that Trump owes the nation a greater apology for his gaudy behavior that embarrasses the nation as a whole.

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Dissection debate; an ongoing issue

Learning about the dinky protest that took place outside of a high school district in suburban Highland Park couldn’t help but remind me of my own school years – particularly that moment when I was called upon to cut up a frog.

I don't recall a tongue being so prominent on our frog

Dissection – as in that so-called tradition of an assignment in which we use a scalpel to cut through the outer flesh so that we can peel it back and see, for ourselves, the inside of a living creature.

ACTUALLY, THE INSIDE of a creature that once was alive. These frogs were all dead and preserved in a chemical meant to keep them from decomposing. They were purchased from a company that provided these frog carcasses to school districts just for this very purpose.

I remember being called upon to identify all the inner organs and even take a crack at drawing pictures of what was inside my particular frog. And yes, the thought of having to handle the inner parts of a frog did make me squeamish.

Which is why, in a sense, I got lucky. My particular junior high school had a budget and the frogs were rationed out to us so that every two students had to share one.

In my case, I was partnered up with a guy who was of the sort that he wasn’t the least bit squeamish. He insisted on doing all the cutting himself.

I SUSPECT THAT if I had tried to pick up the scalpel, he would have smacked it out of my hand, then used it to cut me open.

Basically, he handled the cutting, while I wound up drawing all the pictures of what we saw inside – which I recall as being a fairly nondescript sight. I’m not sure how much I really learned about the inner workings of a living being by seeing the guts of this particular frog.

So there’s a part of me that sympathizes with the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – the group that was behind the picketing that took place in the northern suburbs on Friday.

Protesters said dissection is “horrific and unnecessary” and a PETA official told the Chicago Tribune that, “With all the violence in the U.S., it is important we teach children compassion for all living beings.”

I’LL BE HONEST, I didn’t realize students were still doing dissection with any regularity. I thought it was something reserved for the most advanced classes where the end results were expected to be more detailed than the crude drawings I once did of a frog’s innards.

I have often heard of the computer programs that allow a person to “virtually” cut open a “frog” and see what the insides look like.

Which fits in with the modern concept of using technology in the classrooms and makes kids comfortable with computers in ways that older generations often aren’t, and never will be.

Although I’ve always been skeptical of such use, wondering if we’re creating a generation of people who think the computer is significant, instead of the tasks that you’re using it to do.

SO IN THAT regard, perhaps you need a real frog (albeit one whose life wasn’t all that pleasant before dying and becoming something for use in a biology classroom) to gain an educational experience.

Although perhaps there need to be elements of teaching about what the living creature went through during its life. So as to perhaps sway the thoughts of my one-time lab partner who just couldn’t want to cut open a frog’s belly.

One thing I do remember from that junior high dissection session – many of us in class were envious of the fellow student who, upon cutting open her frog, found that it had many bugs inside of it that remained undigested. This particular frog died with a full belly.

As for my frog, he must have died hungry. I found nothing inside, and there was little that was the least bit unique about the experience.

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Dueling thoughts on Blagojevich; how will they differ on Ill. Governor?

Call it one of the perks for people who enjoy the read of newspapers that compete with each other – we in Chicago now have rival thoughts for what should become of our state’s former governor who is half-way through serving a 14-year prison term.

Blagojevich, from back in the days when being governor was fun. Photo provided by state of Illinois

The fate of Rod Blagojevich, whose case has worked its way through the appeal process all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, is now in the hands of President Donald Trump – who implied earlier this week he’d be inclined to consider some form of clemency.

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE – the newspaper that was so opposed to the concept of a “President Donald Trump” that they endorsed a Libertarian candidate for president – came out this week with an editorial stance saying (in essence) “Hell, No!”

They literally wrote in an editorial urging Trump to back off the issue, “We have…concluded that the sentence he earned not only is fair. It’s fair warning to other criminal pols in Illinois, the State of Corruption.”

Yet the Chicago Sun-Times, the newspaper that proclaims itself to be that of the workingman and was solidly behind Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful presidential bid of 2016, came out with an editorial stance headlined, “Trump schemes aside, Blagojevich deserves shorter sentence.”

The newspaper that at one time called itself, “The Bright One” says that having Trump commute the Blagojevich sentence to time already served would essentially mean the one-time governor would have lost the past six-and-a-half years of his life to federal incarceration.

WHICH IT SAYS is fair in that it would mean Rod would have done about the same amount of prison time as former Gov. George Ryan got for his criminal convictions dating back to actions he committed as an Illinois secretary of state.

Each newspaper has managed to take an opposing stance on the same issue, which I’m sure is part of their efforts to differentiate themselves from each other – and from other newspapers in existence.

It’s part of what gives a publication its sense of personality, and what will be lost if those people all eager to dump the printed-on-paper word for ramblings published on the Internet (including this very weblog) wind up seeing their vision prevailing in the not-so-distant future.

And yes, it will stir up resentment among many. Since I don’t doubt there are people so unsympathetic to Rod Blagojevich that they want him to suffer – and don’t particularly care that the sentence he is now serving (scheduled for release sometime during 2024) might be a tad too long.

ALL I KNOW is that if the two remaining metro daily papers in Chicago can get this worked up over Blagojevich’s future, I’m anxious to see how they wind up weighing in on the upcoming gubernatorial elections coming Nov. 6.

Back during the primary, the Tribune was the paper that found its way to endorse Gov. Bruce Rauner in the Republican Party primary over Jeanne Ives, while picking Christopher Kennedy’s failed bid for governor over that of ultimate winner J.B. Pritzker.

Their editorials made it rather clear they didn’t think much of the idea of a “Governor Pritzker” and that they were buying into much of the line of logic that Rauner presents that he needs ideological allies to do what he wants (particularly on issues related to organized labor) if Illinois is to improve.

While the Sun-Times backed Pritzker’s primary bid in ways that made it clear they don’t have a problem with him being governor – particularly if it means that Rauner winds up out on his keister come Inauguration Day in January 2019.

HOW VOCIFEROUS WILL the editorial rhetoric become?

Will we have to make the editorial pages a “must-read” in coming months? Will we have to snicker at those people who insist on saying they “don’t read” editorials, because it shows they don’t know what they’re missing?

Will the biggest loss to our city’s local news scene on that future date when there are no more dueling newspapers be that we have a lone editorial voice pompously trying to tell us what to think?

Because by reading the editorials these days, it’s quite clear there’s only one thought overwhelmingly held by all of us – nobody (and I mean nobody) wants Rod Blagojevich back in any form of electoral office!

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EXTRA: June 12 is back on, for now

So it seems that June 12, in Singapore is back on. President Donald J. Trump said Friday following an hour-long-plus meeting with aides to Kim Jong Un of North Korea that he's once again willing to meet with that nation's leader in hopes of reaching some sense of agreement with that rogue nation.

What will actually come out of such a gathering? We'll have to wait and see. Actually, we'll have to wait and see if the gathering actually takes place. Trump could easily have another hissy fit in the next week-and-a-half and cancel the session once again.

I DO HAVE one thought bopping through my mind; do the ideologues who perpetually rant against the United States trying to reach a sense of peace with Cuba now ease up their rhetoric since they're so eager to see Trump get his "Nobel Prize" for bringing peace with North Korea -- a nation we technically remain at war with some seven-decades after the shooting stopped.

Not likely. Ideologues rarely care about fact or logic when making their arguments.

So does this mean the ideologues now resurrect their talk that Trump is worthy of the Nobel Prize (which they think he's entitled to because former President Barack Obama managed to win one for his efforts related to the Middle East)?

And how peeved would they become if it turns out the Nobel types think Kim's actions are more worthy of the prize? Not that I'm saying they will be -- having two irrational leaders trying to achieve peace always has the potential to create chaos. And I don't mean the humorous kind that the International Organization of Evil of "Get Smart" used to engage in.

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Trump already gave Arpaio clemency, Blagojevich shouldn’t be a shock

President Donald J. Trump is the man who felt compelled to grant a pardon to the Arizona sheriff who symbolically flipped the bird to federal prosecutors who were trying to make sure he didn’t violate the civil rights of the inmates in his jails, particularly those who were of Latin American ethnic origins.

BLAGOJEVICH: Does he have president's ear?

By comparison, granting some form of clemency to one-time Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is a no-brainer. Relatively speaking, that is.

FOR AN ARGUMENT can be made that the 14-year prison sentence that Blagojevich currently is serving at a federal facility in Colorado is far harsher than the prison terms other political people have received for their government corruption convictions.

I know many people are so offended at the memory of Blagojevich’s six years in charge of Illinois government that they don’t care if he’s getting punished overly harsh.

But if Trump were to follow through with his talk (which, admittedly, can be cheap) and grant Blagojevich some relief that allows him out of prison prior to the 2024 date upon which he’s currently scheduled for release, I don’t think we should be all that surprised.

For what it’s worth, Trump used that ever-present Twitter account of his on Thursday to say he plans to grant a full pardon to Dinesh D’Souza – an ideologue commentator who back in 2014 pleaded guilty to charges he violated federal campaign finance laws.

TRUMP: Does he like idea of ticking people off?

HE SUPPOSEDLY GOT people to donate money to a Republican challenging Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., by promising he’d reimburse them. Meaning he’d be able to exceed laws limiting the amount of money he’d be able to contribute.

Then, while riding on board Air Force One following a presidential appearance in Texas, Trump told reporter-types that he also was considering action to benefit Martha Stewart (who already has served her time in federal prison) and Blagojevich (who remains incarcerated).

According to the Associated Press, Trump told reporters on board the presidential plane that he thinks Blagojevich did dumb things while serving as Illinois governor, but added that “lots of politicians do.” And he believes a 14-year prison term is too long.

BLAGOJEVICH: Will she become a very happy woman?

For what it’s worth, Trump’s expression of sympathy for Blagojevich comes just days after the Wall Street Journal published a Blagojevich-written commentary that expressed the thought federal prosecutors were behaving in ways too harsh and trying to criminalize behavior that is part of the way government operates.

WITH HIMSELF AS “Case No. One” as evidence (“I’m in prison for practicing politics, Rod wrote) for his argument.

I know some argued Blagojevich was wasting his time with such a commentary – Trump doesn’t read! He’s certainly NOT going to be swayed by such an argument.

But the Blagojevich commentary did get more than its share of Twitter attention – which means Trump most likely is aware of it. And considering the two men have a tie (Blagojevich was on one of the Trump television programs back when Rod was still a free man trying to build a sympathetic image for himself), I’m sure he’s aware of the case.

I also don’t doubt that Trump is enough of a smart-aleck personality that he figures the kind of people who will be offended by him showing sympathy for Blagojevich are the ones who routinely deride him for everything else – and that he has nothing to lose!

SO WILL TRUMP make Patti Blagojevich the happiest woman on Earth by allowing her to have a husband back? Will Trump figure he has nothing to lose by ticking off his enemies?

ARPAIO: Trump's truly offensive pardon

Does Trump figure that pardoning D’Souza is his offense to New York Democrats, so that sympathy for Blagojevich is his idea of “equal time” that will tick off Chicago Dems?

Does the man just have a screw or two loose that he’s willing to take such an action for Blagojevich? Which would be ironic, because when Rod was Illinois governor, he was notorious for ignoring requests for clemency to the point where his successors (Pat Quinn and Bruce Rauner) had a serious backlog to address when they took office.

All I know is, like I already stated, the idea of giving one-time Phoenix-area Sheriff Joe Arpaio clemency to spare him prison time after he’d already been found guilty of criminal contempt of court for deliberately ignoring various orders restricting his harassment of people just because they’re Latino makes anything he does for Blagojevich petty politics by comparison.

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