Finding an answer for the NIU shootings

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

Well before we even knew the name of the gunman in the Northern Illinois University killing spree, some people already knew why he did it. Guns. Or, not guns.

And so, another tiresome argument over gun control was reignited, with both sides spilling their invective all over the Internet. The victims, their families and friends deserve better. If we have to discuss it, at least let the discussion be a little more intelligent and respectful.

Not that we needed another school shooting to begin the discussion. Mass shootings have been occurring with increasing frequency. Just a week ago at Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge, a 23-year-old women killed two students, and then herself.

Continue reading in the Chicago Daily Observer

The governor of three states?

By Dennis Byrne
Political Mavens

Mitt Romney should run for governor of Michigan in 2010.

Yeah sure, I, too, thought it was way out when a friend suggested it at lunch a few days ago, but after listening to his reasons and the more I thought about it, the more intriguing and rational it sounds. Besides, it would be great fun.

The deadly serious suggestion came from John Tillman, chairman of the Illinois Policy Institute, a free-market and liberty-based think tank. He parried every objection I could think of, and some that I hadn’t.

Tillman—a dyed-in-the-wool conservative and speaking for himself—explained it would be a perfect opportunity for Romney to show that he could turn around not one, but two states. Using free-market and liberty-based principles to successfully govern, Tillman said, he could cement his conservative credentials. And set himself up for a run for the White House if the presumptive GOP nominee, John McCain, should lose.

Certainly, he couldn’t do worse than the current Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm. Just this yesterday, the tax and spend governor unveiled a proposed $44.8-billion budget that’s almost 3 percent higher than this year’s. She’s bragging that she can do it without a tax or fee increase, but it should be noted that she’s getting plenty of help from a big hike last year in the state income tax and from a surcharge on the state’s main business tax. It’s expected to bring in an extra $1.54 billion this year.

Tillman is a Michigan native who is saddened by how liberal policies have driven away business from a rust-belt state already hard-hit by a recession. He figures that voters are ready for a change (Granholm is prevented by the state’s term limit law from running for a third term, so Romney would have to face someone else.) Trying to be a governor of a second state shouldn’t be a problem with voters, since Romney was born in Michigan and he’s returning to the state he loves to straighten things out. That should inoculate him against carpet-bagging charges, especially when voters already have shown that they are perfectly willing to elect someone who was born out of the country—Canadian native Granholm.

A bigger hitch, however, might be the tired old charge that he’s using the governorship as a stepping-stone to be president. Voters don’t like it when someone runs for an office expressly to position himself for a run at a higher office. For some reason, just the perception can kill a candidacy. I’ve never minded it though; in business, it’s not held against you if on your way to becoming a vice president you have bigger things, such as CEO, in mind.

Go for it, Mitt.

This post also appears on PoliticalMavens

Show exit polls the door

Incessant analysis adds little value

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Now that exit polls have confirmed that white men can bring themselves to vote for a black presidential candidate, can we dump the pollsters?

It was thanks to pollsters interviewing those who had cast votes that reporters-turned-sociologists could proclaim the startling fact that a significant percentage of white males could shrug off their supposedly deep-seated racism and vote for a black man, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). As if we needed a poll to tell us that.

CNN's "best political team" of commentators on Super Tuesday night told us. One team member, former presidential adviser David Gergen, was amazed that Obama could get 45 percent of the white male vote in a Southern state. It was, he said, historic. Host Lou Dobbs, reading my mind, cautioned against stereotyping white men, but Gergen, reminding everyone that he was from the South and, therefore, I suppose, an authority on white male racism, said it couldn't have happened as recently as two years ago.

Of course, Obama, an extraordinary candidate whatever his race, wasn't running two years ago. But, thanks to exit polls, we can keep the fight going over just how racist we all are.

Exit polls are poisonous. At least how they are used. Which is obsessively. They provide ammunition for those who ponder whether Hispanics are racist because they voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) instead of for a fellow "minority." Or conversely, whether black voters are racist because they voted for Obama in near "unanimous" numbers.

They inform us which candidate has the support of "upper-income" voters, so we can fuel class warfare by voting for his opponent. They give us such "insights" as this from Jonathan Tilove in a Newhouse dispatch: For the first time "Caucasian men" will have to get used to the idea that one of their own might not be president. But, he points out, exit polls tell us that because women and blacks are voting for their own, the decision of whether a black or a woman will be nominated is left in the hands of white men. Apparently, no matter how we try, we just can't get white men out of the equation.

Super Tuesday analysts treated exit polls as sacred texts, droning on and on and on about which candidate most appealed to (or was disliked by) a particular racial, ethnic, religious or gender voting bloc.

Maybe it was because they had nothing else to jabber about until they could proclaim a winner the instant the polls closed in each state. Maybe it was because explaining the far more complex mechanics of delegate selection was too difficult. Or maybe it was because they thought that exit poll results are terribly interesting and important.

Important? For some, more important than the elections themselves. Recall that in the 2004 presidential election, the conspiracy theorists concluded that Republicans somehow had stolen the election from Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and handed it to President Bush because the election results did not conform to the exit polls. The polls had "predicted an overwhelming victory" for Kerry, and a stolen election, for some, was the only plausible explanation.

Here's a plausible explanation: The polls were wrong; the elections were right. Legendary newspaper columnist Mike Royko, brimming with disgust for the polls, often advised his readers to lie to pollsters. Some voters, I'm sure, do. There also are many other ways for the polls to be "wrong." Sometimes the sample of voters polled does not accurately reflect the profile of the actual voters. For example, some experts suggest that conservatives are less willing to share their voter information with strangers, thus tilting the sample to the left. Who knows? Who cares?

Here I'll go out on a limb: Exit polls fail to serve any consequential purpose in the democratic scheme of things; they may even be inimical to the commonweal. No, I'm not suggesting that they should be banned or outlawed. But there's an irony in their compulsive use. When so much is made in this presidential campaign of "unifying" our country, the exit polls shove us into compartments with our "own kind." Exit polls, when they focus excessively on our sociology, magnify our differences. We shouldn't need exit polls to know that we've made significant progress in the last 50 years in coming together. Maybe when reporters and pundits stop hanging on to every detail of exit polls, we'll know that we, as a nation, have grown up.

Boo Hoo, Someone Edited My Copy

Sun-Times editorial page editor cries in her beer

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

In perhaps the shortest tenure of any editorial board editor in my memory, the Sun-Times’ chief opinion-maker, Cheryl Reed, has quit, and not without cause.

According to her, newspaper management inappropriately fiddled with the paper’s editorial endorsements of Barack Obama and John McCain, without telling her. I would have quit too (I served on the Sun-Times editorial board for 22 years), but not for the high-and-mighty, ego-inflating reason offered by Reed. To me, it would have been a clear signal by the publisher and owner that they had lost confidence in me, and it was time to go. The failure to collaborate on changes made in copy is something that’s done to rookie reporters, not editorial page editors. The message from management to Reed was simple and clear: You blew it.

But, instead of being embarrassed by this rebuke, she has turned this reproach into a badge of martyrdom.

Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

The Choice for Illinois Democrats

By Dennis Byrne

Chicago Daily Observer

When Democratic partisans vote in the Illinois primary Tuesday, they’ll have a choice between two leading candidates, one of which doesn’t want to play by the rules and the other who likes to play hide and seek.

Astonishingly, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) wants to change the rules in the middle of the primaries in her favor. And her opponent, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) missed so many Senate votes, it would be hard to tell where he stands; except that one analysis of his voting record shows that he is the Senate’s biggest liberal.

Not much of a choice, if you ask me.

First, Clinton’s wanting to change the rules in midstream:

It involves her “wins” in Michigan and Florida, two states that were stripped of their voting delegates in the Democratic convention because they violated the Democratic National Committee’s orders not to hold their primaries before Super Tuesday.

Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

Handout is just that no matter its name

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Like the Boy Scout who insists on helping an old lady cross the street when she wants to stay put, everyone seems determined to help out seniors, whether we need to do so or whether everyone can afford it.

The list of all the entitlements, benefits and freebies larded onto the elderly is way too long to publish here, other than to mention they include, according to AARP, deals on travel, financial services, entertainment, computers, gifts and insurance.

As if that weren't enough, Gov. Rod Blagojevich blackmails the Illinois legislature into giving seniors free bus and train rides. Seniors already get deeply discounted fares, but paying less than the price of a coffee latte for a bus ride apparently is asking too much of seniors.

Now comes Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) who wants to make 20 million seniors eligible for a handout under the $150 billion economic stimulus package working its way through Congress. The House, earlier passing its version of the bill, cruelly -- we're supposed to think -- excluded these seniors from receiving any largess.

Of course, that's a vast oversimplification. Here is the reality: The House-passed version would give rebates of $600 (individual) and $1,200 (couples) to all but the wealthiest taxpayers. People who don't pay taxes wouldn't get the rebates, which is why they are called rebates. Among those getting rebates are seniors whose taxable income isn't high enough to pay any taxes. One reason their income isn't high enough is that some or all of the Social Security payments that they receive are not taxable.

So, here come the oily politicians making it sound like the rebates discriminate against poor seniors.

Baucus' response is devious: Allow Social Security payments to be counted when determining whether a senior is receiving enough income for a rebate. Of course, the Social Security payments still won't be taxed fully or at all, because we don't want to "punish" seniors for receiving Social Security.

If this is confusing, look at it this way: Baucus wants to return to 20 million seniors the taxes that they never paid. My point is: As a senior, I'd gladly accept whatever you want to give me. But don't call it a rebate. Be honest; call it a gift, or a handout.

To carry out this self-serving charade, Baucus and his Senate cohorts unconscionably risk stalling or killing a rare, bipartisan House-Bush administration agreement that many Americans (but not necessarily I) believe is a desperately needed economic stimulus package. Baucus explains it all with a cliche: "America's seniors have worked hard all their lives, paid taxes all their lives, and they contribute to our economy today." To which an appropriate answer is: "Yeah, so what?" Plenty of Americans are working hard, paying their taxes and contributing to the economy.

In reality, this handout is the work of politicians of both parties who want to appear to be fair and compassionate, but who are afraid of offending a large bloc of voters who believe that they've got something coming to them.

As a senior, I invite Baucus to pander to someone else. Some seniors don't need or want this charity. Yes, seniors who actually need help should get help. But blanket handouts, like Blagojevich's free rides for every senior regardless of need, make no more sense than subsidizing left-handed golfers because they're, left-handed. The wrongness of Blagojevich's unwarranted generosity is so obvious that even the most politically savvy can't figure out what he thinks he gains by it.

By giving another freebie to seniors, Baucus and his pals are reinforcing the idea that seniors, simply because they have survived 65 or more years, deserve a cash gratuity. This is especially insidious as we approach a crisis in the funding of Medicare and Social Security. Seniors and would-be seniors have to know that some changes will have to be made. Medicare costs are so out of control that it's hard to imagine how the solution could not include some castor oil. So, what we don't need right now are the likes of Blagojevich and Baucus reinforcing the idea that seniors are entitled to every handout that wanders through our politicians' demagogic minds.

Flummoxed in Illinois, A Guide to Super Tuesday.

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

For a change, the Super Tuesday presidential primary in Illinois is important.

In recent history, Illinois, like so many other states, has been the tail, waged by the dog when it comes to picking each party’s nominee. After Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and a few other early state primaries and caucuses, the media were wont to bestow the “Big Mo” crown on one candidate or another. By the time the tail-end states got around to their primaries, the other candidates, if they had not already dropped out, were swamped by an electorate that didn’t want to “waste a vote” on a Slo Mo candidate.

But this time, no clear winner has emerged in either party, in popular vote or in delegate count. As a result, Super Tuesday has enfranchised the 70 million registered voters in the 22 states that are selecting Democratic delegates and the 21 picking Republican delegates. Suddenly, your vote counts

Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

McCain most capable of this batch of hopefuls

Politics is the art of the possible

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Nothing seems to anger die-hard Republicans more than Cafeteria Conservatives -- folks who pick and choose which right-wing diktat they will believe or reject.

Chief among the die-hards is Rush Limbaugh, the conservative equivalent of the Roman Catholic Church's Curia, who deigns to define what constitutes conservative purity. No one better in the church wields the nihil obstat (nothing hinders) stamp better than his lugness. Not even medieval church censors were better at defining what is free or not free of doctrinal error.

The case in point is presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). For Limbaugh, McCain's apostasies on global warming, campaign-finance reform and who knows what else (listening to Limbaugh for more than five minute is a danger to one's mental health, so I don't) draw almost as much passionate wrath as do his twangings on Hillary Clinton.

I disagree somewhat with McCain on such topics, but he doesn't deserve such hostility. Neither do other Republican candidates for their sundry and alleged conservative shortcomings. Limbaugh-minded commentators would explain that so many Republicans are wandering about undecided with eyes vacant because none of the candidates is without doctrinal sin.

Myself being something of a conservative (usually pronounced through pursed lips as if the speaker has tasted something vile), I wish they'd all stop "waiting for Reagan," as William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, put it. Republicans have canonized President Ronald Reagan -- they shouldn't -- and anyone who doesn't fit his mold is labeled a "defective product." This nonsense is guaranteed to increase the number and severity of party inquisitions. And it threatens to hand the White House to the Democrats.

For all of McCain's alleged faults, he holds an American Conservative Union lifetime rating of 82.3. True, that's the lowest among the leading GOP candidates. But, RealClearPolitics.com's consolidated polls of various head-to-head races show that McCain is the only Republican candidate who is, at this moment, ahead of the Democratic front-runners, Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois. Are die-hard conservatives so dead set against a slightly less than pure conservative president that they would prefer either Clinton or Obama (with American Conservative Union ratings of 9 and 8, respectively) in the White House?

McCain's conservative credentials can be verified by a close examination of Project Vote Smart's Web site (www.vote smart.org), where the voting records, issue positions and interest group ratings of the candidates are detailed. Spend time there, and you'll find that McCain isn't the ogre that custodians of the conservative flame would have us believe.

For me, the two most important issues in the election are national security (i.e. the war on terror, the war in Iraq and the nuclear threat posed by lunatic tyrants) and the quality and philosophical grounding of the new president's appointments to the Supreme Court and other federal courts. (The latter should be most critical to pro-lifers. Whether the high court will return the question of abortion to voters depends on the quality of those appointments.) McCain is on the right side of both issues, and that's what counts for me. Everything else -- the economy, free trade, balanced budget and so forth -- comes in second. McCain's remarkable comeback in the polls means something. Perhaps its significance coincides with the success of the Iraq "surge" -- something he courageously had urged for years while former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was still carrying out his lame war strategy.

Or perhaps voters are getting tired of the mind-clanging, headache-inducing demands for "outsiders" who are the "agents of change." Right. Tossing a puppy into a ring of snarling pit bulls also will bring about change. Reformers often fail because they don't know the territory. For all the glory heaped on Obama, I'd put my money on the less illustrious and consummate insider Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to be an effective agent of change. Not that he is, or that his change is the kind I'd like.

This election, any election, comes down to a single question: Who can govern the best? Not who can orate the best. Or which candidate is the correct race or color. Who can govern the best ... it's not a conversation you often, if ever, hear in the endless jabber about the presidential elections. I suspect voters are getting tired of all the strategizing by creepy political advisers and just want someone to govern, someone who, as one shoe commercial says, can "just do it." If so, that's why McCain will get the Republican nomination.

Kerry Goes Down with His Swift Boat, Again

By Dennis Byrne
RealClearPoliticvs

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) now has accused Hillary Clinton's campaign of the worst possible--in his mind--evil: "Swiftboating" his choice for president, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL).

Kerry, demonstrating a child-like inability to let go, on Tuesday dragged out the swiftboating analogy in an e-mail responding to what he called "disgusting lies" that "they" are floating that Obama is a secret Muslim and refuses to observe the Pledge of Alliance.

Kerry doesn't say who "they" are, but it's clear, considering the deteriorating civility of the two campaigns that he was referring to the Clinton camp. Kerry equates the "disgusting lies" told about Obama with what happened to him when the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth challenged Kerry's claims, made during his presidential campaign, of bravery and heroism in the Vietnam War.

Read more at RealClearPolitics

Chances for old-time convention look good

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Wanna have some fun? Let's speculate that none of the presidential candidates in either party wins enough primaries to wrap up the nomination before the conventions in August and September.

Those too young to remember the last time the conventions were wide open would be entertained, enlightened and appalled at the sight of party leaders and state delegations horse-trading behind closed doors to select their candidates. As scandalous as this might be for some, I don't think it's necessarily cataclysmic because the smoke-filled rooms have produced some good candidates and presidents.

So how likely is a wide-open convention? Far from a certainty, but it's possible, which in itself is startling.

This isn't well understood because the media focus on the primaries has been entirely misdirected. Like the presidential election, it's not the popular vote that counts. All that counts is the number of delegates each candidate corrals. Too many stories simply ignore the delegate count.

To illustrate: Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in New Hampshire. But it appears Barack Obama walks away with more delegates. That's because you need to include the preferences of superdelegates -- party bigwigs who vote at the convention for the candidates of their choice. More of those delegates are committed to Obama than Clinton, so the delegate totals from New Hampshire show Obama with 12, Clinton 11 and John Edwards 4, according to CNNPolitics.com. It gets even more confusing because every party in every state has its own way of naming delegates, some so arcane it's hard to capture the big picture. Some states give all their delegates to the winning candidate, others portion out delegates among the candidates to reflect the vote. Some states caucus, some name superdelegates and some states send some uncommitted delegates. Winning the Democratic nomination requires 50 percent, or 2,025, of the convention's 4,049 delegates. Looking at the delegate tally as of this writing (after the Nevada caucus and before the South Carolina primary), Clinton has captured 210 delegates, or 54 percent of 386 delegates selected, according to CNN. If she continues to gather delegates at the same ratio, she will be the party's nominee, but not by much. Obviously, there's no way to predict if she can maintain that pace.

On the GOP side, Mitt Romney is leading with 72 delegates, or 46 percent of the 156 delegates selected, according to CNNPolitics.com. In other words, none of the Republicans, including Romney, is gathering delegates at the ratio necessary to win the nomination before the convention.

Still, you ask, couldn't it be over after Super Tuesday on Feb. 5, when more than 20 states, including Illinois, pick their delegates? Maybe not. If, say, Clinton held at 54 percent after Super Tuesday, she still would be more than 900 delegates short of winning the nomination, according to my estimates. The same holds true on the Republican side. Which means that the selection of the candidates could fall to the later primary states. How refreshing. That's far from the usual practice and not how all those states that moved their primaries up to ridiculously early dates planned it. So, sorry, Illinois and the rest of y'all; you were much too clever for your own good.

One other thing to keep in mind: With the field so wide open, Super Tuesday voters will have to make up their own minds, without worrying about "throwing away their votes" on an obvious "loser." Here's a juicy scenario. Imagine the nomination coming down to the last of the primaries, in June, in states like Montana, New Mexico or South Dakota. The sight of candidates furiously scraping for those few delegates would make Iowa and New Hampshire look like muted afterthoughts. So, we could end up with one or two "wide-open" conventions. If you think the primaries have been divisive so far, wait until you see how Clinton, Obama and the others go after each other if it all comes down to August. Welcome to the politics of mutually assured destruction.

Look on the bright side. Both parties could end up with their strongest candidates, or perhaps a surprise, compromise candidate who isn't even in the race now. Someone who didn't collect all that special-interest money. Someone like Harry Truman, a great president, who no one thought would ever occupy the White House. Or Dwight Eisenhower, who was selected by the GOP convention. Or Abraham Lincoln, who won the nomination in the old "Wigwam" on the banks of the Chicago River. We can only hope.

Saying "No" to Abortion

By Dennis Byrne
Political Mavens

There's good news to celebrate on the 35th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton U.S. Supreme Court decisions legalizing abortions for any reason: The U.S. abortion rate has dropped to its lowest level since 1974, the year after abortion's legalization.

But judging from the news accounts, you might get the idea that this is bad not good news. We're told about the difficulty that abortion clinics have in staying open, "restrictive" abortion laws being passed in many states (such as, oh dear, stopping a child's friend from taking her across state lines for a secret abortions without the knowledge of their parents), intimidation by "anti-choice zealots" and so forth. In other words, reason for the decline is that women are being denied their "reproductive rights."

No mention was made of another, perhaps more obvious contributing factor. Maybe increasing numbers of women are deciding that having an abortion is not a good idea.

This, after all, is the most effective way of reducing abortions, better than all the laws that might be passed. And it is an effect rejoinder to an appalling statement made by "anti-lifer," Beth Jordan, of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals. Delighted about the increasing use of the abortion pill, RU-486, she said, "It's going a long way toward normalizing abortion."

Thanks for the honesty, Ms. Jordan. The real goal is to "normalize" the termination of human life.

Leave Iraq? We already are

By Dennis Byrne
Political Mavens

While a number of presidential candidate continue to blather about "getting out of Iraq," the truth is that the United States already has begun the process.

In his recent visit to the Middle East, President George W. Bush announced that an Army brigade and a Marine Expeditionary Unit have already returned home, not to be replaced. "In the coming months, four additional brigades and two Marine battalions will follow suit," he said.

In another little noticed development, Bush said that Iraqi forces have "conducted a surge of their own, generating well over 100,000 more Iraqi police and soldiers to sustain the security gains. Tens of thousands of concerned local citizens are protecting their communities, and working with coalition and Iraqi forces to ensure al Qaeda cannot return."

While the president's critics grudgingly acknowledge that although the surge has dampened violence, it hasn't worked because it hasn't brought forth some undefined kind of parliamentary flowering. Yet, one underlying divisive issue--the distribution of oil revenues--has generated enough agreement among the contending Sunni, Shia and Kurd factions--the money now is being parceled out throughout the country. That, in turn, allows Iraqis to address one of the remaining major hurdles: reconstruction. Perhaps most important, the three factions increasingly are working together at the local level.

Contrary to his critics, Bush hasn't buried his head in the sand. Items that he listed on the Iraqis' to-do list were the continued improvement of conditions from "bottom up," passage of a revised de-Baathification law and a national budget, continued growth of Iraqi security forces and their efforts to take the fight to al Qaeda and other extremist groups, the defeat of criminals that are victimizing neighborhoods, the further reduction of the flow of terrorists through Syria and blocking Iran's support of terrorists.

That's quite a load, but it at least is more detailed than the vague demands to "get the troops out of Iraq."

Keeping the Lights on at The Bright One

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

Someone has to save the Sun-Times.

Someone who cares about Chicago and journalism and integrity. Not like the recent set of incompetents and crooks that have sent the newspaper into what increasingly looks like a death spiral.

Chicago must not only keep two newspapers, but two good newspapers. Chicago cannot pretend to be a world-class city without two—no more than it can expect to capture the Olympics with a creaking, busted CTA.

The Sun-Times and its sister newspapers are cutting $50 million, about 11 percent of its expenses, in the coming half year. The Sun-Times itself last week started to ax about 20 percent of its newsroom staff. Business editor Dan Miller, seeing the darkness approaching, resigned—an ominous portent for sure. Having worked with Miller at the old Chicago Daily News, I know that he should be running the entire paper, not leaving it. With all this, putting out a quality newspaper will be impossible; surviving difficult.

Continue reading in the Chicago Daily Observer

Gangbangers as Terrorists

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

The shooting of a 41-year-old Chicago mother on the South Side evoked a creative idea: Treat gang members as domestic terrorists.

Said Chicago Tribune reader “Welcome to Chicago”:

Laws should be adjusted to limit the rights of gang members. Gang members are domestic terrorists and should be handled using a higher level of force as well as vigilant strategic planning….Of course we care about everyone’s civil rights and rights as a citizen in this country. [But] as soon as an individual or group has proved that after several documentations by police that he is a gang member, then his or her rights should be similar to a terrorist.

Interesting. If we treated gang members as terrorists, perhaps we should send them, without trial, to detention (preferably on a boiling hot Caribbean island) as “enemy combatants.”

Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

Let the Red States Drown

By Dennis Byrne
Political Mavens

The “silver lining” of global warming is that it will destroy the “red states,” the bastions of rightwing “troglodytes.”

No kidding. Left-winger Dave Lindorff is gleeful that millions of Americans will be driven from their land or worse by the “deluge” caused global warming. He says this in something called the Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel:

Say what you will about the looming catastrophe facing the world as the pace of global heating and polar melting accelerates. There is a silver lining.

Look at a map of the US.

The area that will by [sic] completely inundated by the rising ocean—and not in a century but in the lifetime of my two cats—are the American southeast, including the most populated area of Texas, almost all of Florida, most of Louisiana, and half of Alabama and Mississippi, as well as goodly portions of eastern Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.

The Midwest, he says, faces a “permanent condition of unprecedented drought, making the place largely unlivable, and certainly unfarmable….[W]e will see the decline and depopulation of the nation’s vast midsection—noted for its consistent conservatism. Only in the northernmost area, around the Great Lakes (which will be not so great anymore), and along the Canadian border, will there still be enough rain for farming and continued large population concentrations, but those regions, like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois, are also more liberal in their politics.”

Finally, in the Southwest, already parched and stiflingly hot, the rise in energy costs and the soaring temperatures will put an end to right-wing retirement communities like Phoenix, Tucson and Palm Springs. Already the Salton Sea is fading away and putting Palm Springs on notice that the good times are coming to an end. Another right-wing haven soon to be gone.

Most of the blue states—the Northeast and West coasts, specifically—are high enough to escape dire consequences of global warming, he says happily.

So the future political map of America is likely to look as different as the much shrunken geographical map, with much of the so-called “red” state region either gone or depopulated.

And when all these conservatives, running from the flood, seek to find a new life in the blue states, Lindorff would yank away the welcome mat.

The important thing is that we, on the higher ground both actually and figurative, need to remember that, when they begin their historic migration from their doomed regions, we not give them the keys to the city. They certainly should be offered assistance in their time of need, but we need to keep a firm grip on our political systems, making sure these guilty throngs who allowed the world to go to hell are gerrymandered into political impotence in their new homes.

By this, I gather that Lindorff means to chuck the “guilty throngs” into reservations or concentration camps, and repeal the constitutional concept of “one-man, one-vote.”

At first I thought this might be parody, written by some conservative trying to make the left look as ridiculous as possible. But apparently, this weird, paranoid publication is legit, at least in the minds of its editors. They needed no help to look like fools.

There’s not much point trying to explain to this crowd what’s wrong about finding joy (or even “poetic justice”) in the destruction of a large hunk of America and the dislocation or destruction of the homes, businesses and lives of a huge number of its citizens. Lindorff might get this point if he thought about the fact that the victims of Hurricane Katrina would be doubly ruined.

Oh, wait a minute, I get it; it’s only people whose political views are different than Lindorff’s who don’t deserve his compassion. He’d allow residents of New Orleans Ninth Ward into his Blue Heaven, because, well, they’re not from the Right Wing.

How very fascist.

This also is posted on Political Mavens

Bipartisan Forces Gather in Court Against Blagojevich

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

For those who already are convinced that Gov. Rod Blagojevich is nuts, here's something to add to the growing pile of evidence: He's now insisting that legislation he once signed into law is unconstitutional. You can reasonably ask why he enacted the law in the first place, and the obvious answer is that the law no longer serves his cynical political purposes, so he pretends that the law, and the Illinois Constitution, doesn't apply to him.

Blagojevich figures that voters are too stupid or uninterested to appreciate what he's up to. But check it out; you might be amazed as I am at his audacity. You'll recall that the governor had proposed a huge increase in the state health-care program, substantially increasing the number of beneficiaries and proposing a gigantic tax increase to cover the costs. You'll also recall that his idea died when he failed to get even a single legislator to vote for it. No matter; he started the program on his own, without legislative approval. When a legislative committee -- the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules -- that oversees administrative actions then blocked his move, he said, in effect, kiss my burro, and went ahead with the program anyway. You don't need a lawyer to understand that his defiance of the legislature was an unconstitutional violation of the separation of legislative and executive powers.

The state, the constitution says, can spend money only from "public funds" authorized by law, and that only the legislature can authorize the expenditure of public funds. Even a moron should understand the constitution's clarity.

But Blagojevich pushed ahead anyway, saying, "Because we didn't get some legislators to support this, I'm acting unilaterally to expand health care." Under the law, the joint committee on rules has the authority to review directives, such as the one establishing the health-care expansion, for conformance with laws passed by the legislature. Since there is no law that authorizes the program, the committee's decision to block it seems fairly hands-down.

But always there's a loophole, and Blagojevich is trying to drive a truck through it.

The law allows the governor to create some programs on an "emergency" basis. So, the governor declared an emergency, even though no one in the administration adequately explained to the joint committee what the emergency was.

Now comes the twist.

The law that Blagojevich himself signed earlier (the Illinois Administrative Procedure Act), gives the joint committee on rules the authority to suspend the governor's "emergency" action, and after due consideration, it did. Blagojevich's office now argues that the joint committee's action is unconstitutional.

The guy thinks he's Napoleon. All that's left is for him to declare himself emperor, suspend the constitution and crown his wife empress.

The first to file suit against this coup d'etat wasn't an affronted legislator, but a civic-minded individual, Riverside attorney Richard Caro. It's the second go-around for Caro, who last year unsuccessfully sued to stop Blagojevich's unilateral and witless decision to cast $10 million into stem-cell research. Caro's suit has been consolidated with another one filed by Republican Ron Gidwitz, a former Illinois gubernatorial candidate, and Gregory Baise, president of the Illinois Manufacturers' Association.

Blagojevich retaliated by calling the legal challenge "Scrooge-like," suggesting it was a product of Republican malevolence toward the poor.

Now, however, Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan, a Democrat, has intervened to defend the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules' powers, while the Chicago-based Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law has asked to intervene on Blagojevich's side. Cook County Judge James Epstein will hear the case.

This is shaping up to be a first-class constitutional crisis, the kind that the courts are reluctant to enter. Bringing it on apparently doesn't bother Blagojevich, whose Napoleon complex is far advanced. If he loses this fight, he can always whine about how those meanies are endangering people's health care.

Politically, he wins either way. Does it matter that the governor is trashing the constitution? Most people probably consider the fight to be a boring "process" issue, too arcane to bother with. But the answer does matter, to the people who sign up for his plan, only to have it yanked away from them because of its obvious illegality.

In this, Blagojevich doesn't really care about the people he claims to be championing. But there's a bigger issue: To ask if this really matters is to ask if the rule of law and democracy matter.

Enough already with the political change

By Dennis Byrne
Political Mavens

The results of the Iowa caucuses, we’re told, prove that Americans are demanding change.

But if you ask me, we’ve got enough change. Every drawer in my house is brimming with loose change. I’ve got cans loaded with change. Nickels, dimes quarters and pennies; they’re clogging up the works and weighing us down.

Read more at Political Mavens

Speak for yourself, Ellen

Following today’s “disappointing” job numbers, in which the economy increased the number of new jobs it has created for, gee, I don’t know, 48 straight months, Ellen Zentner, United States macroeconomist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in New York, said this:

“The economy tanked in December.”

The verb tank is defined as “failed completely.”

I expect to see Ellen soon selling apples on the street, along with everyone else who has failed completely.

This post also appeared on Political Mavens.

Iowa cornfields fuel folly of presidential hurdles

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

'I've long said that the Iowa caucuses are the gift to Midwestern agriculture.'

-- John Doggett, vice president of public policy for the National Corn Growers Association, as reported by the Associated Press

Gift, you say? Yeah, I suppose you could call a multibillion dollar government handout to special interests a gift. But the word gift just doesn't seem accurate or vast enough to describe the massive plundering that's in store for taxpayers and consumers at the hands of ethanol addicts.

That's thanks to the unrealistically important role that Iowa plays as the first state up in the presidential sweepstakes. Iowa is the nation's biggest corn-producing state (Illinois comes in second), and ethanol's biggest feedstock is corn. So, a veritable parade of presidential candidates from both parties must prostrate themselves in Temple Ethanol.

Take Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York who opposed a hike in ethanol subsidies a couple of years ago, but now that she's stumping Iowa fairgrounds and parlors, she's for them. "Iowa is way ahead of the rest of the country," she said. "What you've done with ethanol ... you're setting the pace."

Yes, Iowa could give lessons to the Texas oil industry when it comes to "setting the pace" in the subsidy Preakness. The Iowa Corn Growers Association keeps close track: Six of the top eight Democratic candidates support or lean toward supporting a 51-cent "blenders credit" for every gallon of pure ethanol mixed into gasoline to help keep the price lower than gasoline.

(Wait a minute, you say. If we have to subsidize ethanol to compete or beat the price of gasoline to the tune of 51 cents a gallon, why don't we just use gasoline? Good question.)

Our beloved Sen. Barack Obama goes further; he would give motorists a 35-cent-per-gallon tax credit for using E85 -- a fuel blend that uses only 15 percent gasoline. Only Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware outright opposes the subsidy. The group apparently couldn't fathom where Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut stand on the 51-cent subsidy, but Dodd is for a big hike in the federally mandated use of ethanol (another form of subsidy).

Republicans are little better. Of the leading GOP candidates, only Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas outright oppose the 51-cent subsidy. Then again, Paul opposes everything, except, I guess, freedom. McCain also "leans towards" opposing a 54-cent per gallon tariff on imported ethanol, made from sugar cane much more efficiently than from corn. No other candidate (except, of course, Paul) in either party appears to oppose the tariff.

I can think of no other major issue garnering such bipartisan agreement and, in this, bipartisanship is not a virtue but a sell-out.

Despite its canonization by "greens," researchers on the grant dole, processors like Decatur-based ADM, ethanol is more promise than reality and possibly a swindle of national proportion.

It may cost more energy to make ethanol than it saves. Its demand for corn puts upward pressure on food prices. It's more costly and difficult than oil and gasoline to transport. The industry's protectionist trade policies anger allies and make a mockery of our argument for free or fair trade.

Gallon for gallon, ethanol provides less energy than gasoline. Even its environmental value is questioned.

The ethanol industry disputes this, but what is not in dispute is that ethanol has made farmers, investors and others in agribusiness rich. As if they were not made rich enough by a lavish aid bill enacted two years ago, President Bush has signed an energy bill that vouchsafes significantly greater cash and benefits to the industry.

Everyone understands the need for stability in the nation's agriculture sector, but the anti-technology, unscientific and ideologically inspired promises being seeded all through Iowa by the candidates go beyond reasonable.

And it will continue for as long as some unwritten rule requires that Iowa kick off the presidential campaign, giving its winners a head start to be president. Maybe it's time for a constitutional amendment that would make the contest for the presidency a truly national election, instead of this silliness now thrust upon us by the farmers of Iowa.

The Exaggerated Death of Newspapers

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

"Newspapers are dead. They didn’t have to be, but their window of opportunity closed long ago."— Steve Rhodes, Beachwood Reporter, a blog.

“I’m sick and tired of listening to everybody talk about and commiserate over the end of newspapers. They ain’t ended, they’re not going to end and I think they have a great future.” – Sam Zell, new Tribune Co. boss.

My money is on Sam. And my apologies to Zell for mentioning Rhodes in the same breathe.

Rhodes apparently doesn’t catch the irony of pronouncing newspapers DOA, while he fuels his blog with daily rants about…newspapers. If Rhodes is right that the papers already are dead, I guess that means he’s living off a cadaver.

But Rhodes isn’t alone....

Read more at the Chicago Daily Observer