Rather than ruining flying, the new no-liquids-on-board rule is a godsend
By Dennis Byrne
Think about the two most annoying experiences about flying today: The long wait to get your carry-on baggage searched and the longer wait while obese fliers clog the cabin aisle while struggling with their equally obese carry-on bags.
Carry-on baggage in hands of inexperienced or self-absorbed passengers is a curse. How many times have you been stuck behind someone trying to squeeze, pound and implant their over-stuff suitcase into the overhead bin? How long does it take you to get off the plane while some fool—always at the front of the cabin ahead of you and scores of other passengers—struggles to extricate the same suitcase from the bin’s confines?
While outwardly the rest of us patiently cool our heels, I’d love to know how many are secretly wishing that the offending passengers themselves would get stuffed into the bins.
What is it with these people? Their precious things can’t be out of their sight for even an hour or two? Their conceit that their time is so much more important than ours that they can’t wait for checked luggage?
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Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Monday, August 14, 2006
Widening the racial divide
Opportunists distort boy's tragic shooting
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
Residents of the Near North Side Cabrini-Green low-income housing project may have a lot to complain about, but not the shooting of a 14-year-old boy who menaced police officers with a gun.
It doesn't matter that the boy was wielding "only" a BB gun that happened to look like the real thing. When you show police officers any kind of weapon, fake or otherwise, you shouldn't be outraged when cops defend themselves. Even if the weapon can "only" fire a projectile at 400 feet a second.
As Mayor Richard Daley said, it was a tragedy that the boy was shot, and we hope for his recovery.
But, it is no reason to storm City Hall and the police station, peacefully or otherwise, with complaints about everything from inadequate housing to police brutality.
But that's what the usual band of opportunists are doing, taking to the streets and media, attempting to drive another wedge between the races. In their protests and warnings, they too easily equate an apparently justified defensive response by police to years of outrageous police torture. A complaint about a single event becomes elevated into blanket statements of condemnation and disgust.
Talk about "disproportionate" responses.
Talk about demagoguery.
For some, the temptation to elevate an individual event into universal statements about white or black people and law enforcement is irresistible.
It's more than intellectually dishonest or ignorant; it jeopardizes the workings of our civil society. It drives the community and police further apart, and makes law enforcement, especially in the neighborhoods that need it most, all the more difficult.
As are the attempts to turn this into another "blame-the-victim" episode.
The boy, we are tutored, is a victim of poverty and racism, of an environment of police brutality, and of a gentry plot to force residents out of Cabrini.
Therefore, we're further tutored, you can ignore his displaying a BB gun that looks identical to a 9mm handgun to police who were investigating an attempted arm robbery just minutes before.
The cycle of poverty and ignorance will never end as long as this dodge is deployed for every upsetting or tragic event.
Funny, while I was researching this latest cause celebre among the racial dividers, I came across something else, something positive, that has received virtually no attention. Responding to community concerns, police in early August announced that they had shut down two open-air drug markets and charged 21 people in separate undercover investigations on the West Side. For the racial dividers, this good news has no substance.
But maybe we can learn something from the racial dividers, when it comes to Salomeja Januska.
They had nothing to say about the 94-year-old woman who was mugged in her old Marquette Park neighborhood she had dared to revisit to purchase some Lithuanian groceries. Outside an old favorite deli, a 30- to 35-year-old man "came out of nowhere," grabbed her purse and then pushed her to the ground, shattering her right arm. She's expected to recover after undergoing surgery at Holy Cross Hospital.
Ironically, the mugger escaped by running down the gangway of her former home, which she had moved from three years ago to escape the growing number of muggings and sexual assaults.
Januska is white. The police said the attacker is black, a fact that didn't make it into many, if any, stories.
Now, if the racial dividers were white, they'd be turning this attack into a universal statement. About how it proves that crime goes up with the appearance of blacks in the neighborhood. About how young black men are preying on old white women. About how blacks are ruining the city. And so forth.
You might hear this in bars and rec rooms. But you didn't hear much, if any, of this in the media, because saying such things is inexcusably racist. Even though these are empirical questions, which may or may not be true.
The point here is an old one: You can openly march on City Hall making the most outrageous claims about how an individual event involving a black "victim" proves the most racist hypotheses. And the press will dutifully report those claims, often sympathetically.
But stretching an individual event, such as a black man's attack on an old white woman, into sweeping generalizations about race is intolerable, never to be publicly uttered.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
Residents of the Near North Side Cabrini-Green low-income housing project may have a lot to complain about, but not the shooting of a 14-year-old boy who menaced police officers with a gun.
It doesn't matter that the boy was wielding "only" a BB gun that happened to look like the real thing. When you show police officers any kind of weapon, fake or otherwise, you shouldn't be outraged when cops defend themselves. Even if the weapon can "only" fire a projectile at 400 feet a second.
As Mayor Richard Daley said, it was a tragedy that the boy was shot, and we hope for his recovery.
But, it is no reason to storm City Hall and the police station, peacefully or otherwise, with complaints about everything from inadequate housing to police brutality.
But that's what the usual band of opportunists are doing, taking to the streets and media, attempting to drive another wedge between the races. In their protests and warnings, they too easily equate an apparently justified defensive response by police to years of outrageous police torture. A complaint about a single event becomes elevated into blanket statements of condemnation and disgust.
Talk about "disproportionate" responses.
Talk about demagoguery.
For some, the temptation to elevate an individual event into universal statements about white or black people and law enforcement is irresistible.
It's more than intellectually dishonest or ignorant; it jeopardizes the workings of our civil society. It drives the community and police further apart, and makes law enforcement, especially in the neighborhoods that need it most, all the more difficult.
As are the attempts to turn this into another "blame-the-victim" episode.
The boy, we are tutored, is a victim of poverty and racism, of an environment of police brutality, and of a gentry plot to force residents out of Cabrini.
Therefore, we're further tutored, you can ignore his displaying a BB gun that looks identical to a 9mm handgun to police who were investigating an attempted arm robbery just minutes before.
The cycle of poverty and ignorance will never end as long as this dodge is deployed for every upsetting or tragic event.
Funny, while I was researching this latest cause celebre among the racial dividers, I came across something else, something positive, that has received virtually no attention. Responding to community concerns, police in early August announced that they had shut down two open-air drug markets and charged 21 people in separate undercover investigations on the West Side. For the racial dividers, this good news has no substance.
But maybe we can learn something from the racial dividers, when it comes to Salomeja Januska.
They had nothing to say about the 94-year-old woman who was mugged in her old Marquette Park neighborhood she had dared to revisit to purchase some Lithuanian groceries. Outside an old favorite deli, a 30- to 35-year-old man "came out of nowhere," grabbed her purse and then pushed her to the ground, shattering her right arm. She's expected to recover after undergoing surgery at Holy Cross Hospital.
Ironically, the mugger escaped by running down the gangway of her former home, which she had moved from three years ago to escape the growing number of muggings and sexual assaults.
Januska is white. The police said the attacker is black, a fact that didn't make it into many, if any, stories.
Now, if the racial dividers were white, they'd be turning this attack into a universal statement. About how it proves that crime goes up with the appearance of blacks in the neighborhood. About how young black men are preying on old white women. About how blacks are ruining the city. And so forth.
You might hear this in bars and rec rooms. But you didn't hear much, if any, of this in the media, because saying such things is inexcusably racist. Even though these are empirical questions, which may or may not be true.
The point here is an old one: You can openly march on City Hall making the most outrageous claims about how an individual event involving a black "victim" proves the most racist hypotheses. And the press will dutifully report those claims, often sympathetically.
But stretching an individual event, such as a black man's attack on an old white woman, into sweeping generalizations about race is intolerable, never to be publicly uttered.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Illinois Races Draw National Attention
By Dennis Byrne
Human Events
Voters in Chicago’s west suburban sixth congressional district, long represented by venerable and retiring Henry Hyde, are caught in the crossfire from the adjacent districts of two of the most powerful House members in both parties.
The cannon to the right of them, as Tennyson might write, are those of dug-in House Speaker Dennis Hastert. The cannon commanding the heights to the left of them are those of the doggedly aspiring Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
For more than a year now, voters there have been pounded by some of the heaviest artillery that both sides can muster—massive amounts of out-of-district campaign contributions and campaign stops by the likes of Vice President Dick Cheney. Hastert and Emanuel each would dearly love to sweep down through the valley and claim it as its own, giving the victor a huge symbolic and strategic triumph. The spoils of victory could well be control of the House.
The GOP has reason to fear an epic loss. It’s not for nothing that this race has drawn national attention. No less important, but less visible because the district isn’t flanked by two high-profile politicians, is the nearby battle in the traditionally Republican 8th district, where the “moderate” Democrat Melissa Bean, who ousted the former Rep. Phil Crane, holds the incumbent’s advantage over Republican challenger, David McSweeney.
Continue at Human Events, the national conservative weekly, where I am a newly added contributor.
Human Events
Voters in Chicago’s west suburban sixth congressional district, long represented by venerable and retiring Henry Hyde, are caught in the crossfire from the adjacent districts of two of the most powerful House members in both parties.
The cannon to the right of them, as Tennyson might write, are those of dug-in House Speaker Dennis Hastert. The cannon commanding the heights to the left of them are those of the doggedly aspiring Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
For more than a year now, voters there have been pounded by some of the heaviest artillery that both sides can muster—massive amounts of out-of-district campaign contributions and campaign stops by the likes of Vice President Dick Cheney. Hastert and Emanuel each would dearly love to sweep down through the valley and claim it as its own, giving the victor a huge symbolic and strategic triumph. The spoils of victory could well be control of the House.
The GOP has reason to fear an epic loss. It’s not for nothing that this race has drawn national attention. No less important, but less visible because the district isn’t flanked by two high-profile politicians, is the nearby battle in the traditionally Republican 8th district, where the “moderate” Democrat Melissa Bean, who ousted the former Rep. Phil Crane, holds the incumbent’s advantage over Republican challenger, David McSweeney.
Continue at Human Events, the national conservative weekly, where I am a newly added contributor.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Key to energy reform: Let our oil prices soar
It will take tough love and market realism to spur alternatives to America's dependency on petroleum
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
I'm rootin' for higher gas and oil prices.
And honest environmentalists would admit that they are too.
Am I insane? No more insane than folks who would wait until the oil gauge is on empty and gasoline is at $80 a gallon. Having higher oil prices now is the only way to brake oil consumption and develop other ways to fuel America. No amount of government decrees will do it. No recycling or conservation. No appeals to give up Humvees and other rolling tanks. Money being the biggest economic motivator, $5- to $10-a-gallon gasoline would be crippling now to a world economy built on oil. But it would be the only way to set off an energy revolution of the sort that changed American in the mid-1800s when we began our oil dependency.
This time, revolution will be harder. Changing the energy-consuming habits of nearly 300 million Americans producing a gross domestic product of $12 trillion will be significantly harder than it was to get 31 million Americans and their $74 billion economy to shift from horses to petroleum.
But if we wait until the oil gauge hits zero, it's not unreasonable to predict a worldwide economic meltdown and a return to an agrarian society.
Cities with horse-drawn carriages and streetcars. Suburban wastelands, with the wind blowing through abandoned big-box stores; weeds on the interstates and massive deforestation as millions of people chop wood for heat.
The project by Tribune correspondent Paul Salopek on "The Twilight of the Oil Age" in the July 30 Chicago Tribune lays it out in fearful detail.
So, better to get the economic shock over with well before then. That will happen only if we start to pay the real cost of energy. Salopek quotes one economist who believes that the true cost is $8 a gallon, and runs as high as $11 when the cost of war to protect our Middle East oil sources are thrown in. At that price, Americans might finally get serious about making fundamental changes.
Only when American consumers demand energy alternatives will the business world start providing economical and workable alternatives. The current level of demand for hybrid cars won't come close to doing it. Neither will higher government-imposed mileage standards. Clearly, $3 a gallon hasn't done it.
So, how can Americans be billed the full amount? For one, we can take the politics out of pricing. Here's a great example: Michigan's Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm is running for re-election on a platform of keeping gasoline prices "low," whatever low is.
She'd cap "outrageous profits" and issue the usual "call on Washington to do something, because it hasn't done enough," whatever enough is. Such gasoline populism, with its fake promises, only worsens the calamity when the tank runs empty.
In other words, politicians should stop feeding public expectations that lower prices are normal, and can be achieved by a political process. They need to restrain themselves when they're tempted to blame conspiracies for shortages and higher prices, such as those created by Hurricane Katrina.
Environmentalists and others who crab about the scourge of the suburbs should openly support higher prices. How better to end suburban creep across the countryside and encourage the resettlement of the city neighborhoods and inner suburbs? (Of course, that would increase the demand and force up prices, thereby reducing the supply of affordable housing--something that affordable housing advocates shouldn't overlook.)
This pre-1950s Utopian vision of the metropolis is, of course, naive. It doesn't take into account the computer and telecommunications revolution, which reduces the need for physical proximity and face-to-face communications in our daily affairs. Thus reducing the need for travel.
Some people, who still require close contact in their social and business lives, would gravitate back to the city, but I believe we've entered an increasingly footloose society.
Instead of the suburban blob slowly spreading and inundating the countryside, I see a different future: more Americans settling in more livable, human-scale satellite towns, spotted throughout the countryside.
Of course, while we wait for settlement patterns that more realistically reflect our technologically advancing society and as we shift toward more efficient means of energy production (yes, it has to include nuclear), pain--a lot of it--will be felt. Government's job, to the limits it can, will need to create policies that ease that pain.
"Market forces" aren't always the best way to magically eliminate what economists call "dislocations." But continued pretending that prices won't or shouldn't go still higher will bring us all to ruin.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
I'm rootin' for higher gas and oil prices.
And honest environmentalists would admit that they are too.
Am I insane? No more insane than folks who would wait until the oil gauge is on empty and gasoline is at $80 a gallon. Having higher oil prices now is the only way to brake oil consumption and develop other ways to fuel America. No amount of government decrees will do it. No recycling or conservation. No appeals to give up Humvees and other rolling tanks. Money being the biggest economic motivator, $5- to $10-a-gallon gasoline would be crippling now to a world economy built on oil. But it would be the only way to set off an energy revolution of the sort that changed American in the mid-1800s when we began our oil dependency.
This time, revolution will be harder. Changing the energy-consuming habits of nearly 300 million Americans producing a gross domestic product of $12 trillion will be significantly harder than it was to get 31 million Americans and their $74 billion economy to shift from horses to petroleum.
But if we wait until the oil gauge hits zero, it's not unreasonable to predict a worldwide economic meltdown and a return to an agrarian society.
Cities with horse-drawn carriages and streetcars. Suburban wastelands, with the wind blowing through abandoned big-box stores; weeds on the interstates and massive deforestation as millions of people chop wood for heat.
The project by Tribune correspondent Paul Salopek on "The Twilight of the Oil Age" in the July 30 Chicago Tribune lays it out in fearful detail.
So, better to get the economic shock over with well before then. That will happen only if we start to pay the real cost of energy. Salopek quotes one economist who believes that the true cost is $8 a gallon, and runs as high as $11 when the cost of war to protect our Middle East oil sources are thrown in. At that price, Americans might finally get serious about making fundamental changes.
Only when American consumers demand energy alternatives will the business world start providing economical and workable alternatives. The current level of demand for hybrid cars won't come close to doing it. Neither will higher government-imposed mileage standards. Clearly, $3 a gallon hasn't done it.
So, how can Americans be billed the full amount? For one, we can take the politics out of pricing. Here's a great example: Michigan's Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm is running for re-election on a platform of keeping gasoline prices "low," whatever low is.
She'd cap "outrageous profits" and issue the usual "call on Washington to do something, because it hasn't done enough," whatever enough is. Such gasoline populism, with its fake promises, only worsens the calamity when the tank runs empty.
In other words, politicians should stop feeding public expectations that lower prices are normal, and can be achieved by a political process. They need to restrain themselves when they're tempted to blame conspiracies for shortages and higher prices, such as those created by Hurricane Katrina.
Environmentalists and others who crab about the scourge of the suburbs should openly support higher prices. How better to end suburban creep across the countryside and encourage the resettlement of the city neighborhoods and inner suburbs? (Of course, that would increase the demand and force up prices, thereby reducing the supply of affordable housing--something that affordable housing advocates shouldn't overlook.)
This pre-1950s Utopian vision of the metropolis is, of course, naive. It doesn't take into account the computer and telecommunications revolution, which reduces the need for physical proximity and face-to-face communications in our daily affairs. Thus reducing the need for travel.
Some people, who still require close contact in their social and business lives, would gravitate back to the city, but I believe we've entered an increasingly footloose society.
Instead of the suburban blob slowly spreading and inundating the countryside, I see a different future: more Americans settling in more livable, human-scale satellite towns, spotted throughout the countryside.
Of course, while we wait for settlement patterns that more realistically reflect our technologically advancing society and as we shift toward more efficient means of energy production (yes, it has to include nuclear), pain--a lot of it--will be felt. Government's job, to the limits it can, will need to create policies that ease that pain.
"Market forces" aren't always the best way to magically eliminate what economists call "dislocations." But continued pretending that prices won't or shouldn't go still higher will bring us all to ruin.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Stem Cell Advocates Tread Dangerous Ground
By Dennis Byrne
University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey R. Stone objected to President George W. Bush's veto of funding for embryonic stem cell research because it's not worthwhile protecting human life that's "smaller than a period on this page."
From this we should conclude that the comparative worth of human life is determined by size. The smaller you are, the fewer human rights you get; when you're the size of a dot and you have none. That's bad news for shorties. Stone, writing in an op-ed column for the Chicago Tribune, never gets around to saying how big a person must get before being endowed with the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Years ago, I was discussing this point with a liberal editorial board colleague at the Chicago Sun-Times. She insisted that a woman's "reproductive rights" trumped any fetal rights because "it" wasn't yet a person. So, I asked, when did you become a person? Her pause indicated an intellectual void on the topic, until the answer came to her with sudden and absolute clarity. "Well, at birth," she proclaimed. She reasoned that at birth the fetus no longer is intimately dependent on the woman.
From this we are to conclude that the comparative worth of human life is defined by the degree of dependency. Which isn't good news for the developmentally disabled, the failing elderly and even newborns.
Continue reading at RealClearPolitics.com
University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey R. Stone objected to President George W. Bush's veto of funding for embryonic stem cell research because it's not worthwhile protecting human life that's "smaller than a period on this page."
From this we should conclude that the comparative worth of human life is determined by size. The smaller you are, the fewer human rights you get; when you're the size of a dot and you have none. That's bad news for shorties. Stone, writing in an op-ed column for the Chicago Tribune, never gets around to saying how big a person must get before being endowed with the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Years ago, I was discussing this point with a liberal editorial board colleague at the Chicago Sun-Times. She insisted that a woman's "reproductive rights" trumped any fetal rights because "it" wasn't yet a person. So, I asked, when did you become a person? Her pause indicated an intellectual void on the topic, until the answer came to her with sudden and absolute clarity. "Well, at birth," she proclaimed. She reasoned that at birth the fetus no longer is intimately dependent on the woman.
From this we are to conclude that the comparative worth of human life is defined by the degree of dependency. Which isn't good news for the developmentally disabled, the failing elderly and even newborns.
Continue reading at RealClearPolitics.com
Monday, July 31, 2006
Blagojevich's budget of smoke and mirrors
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
It takes a huge helping of gall for Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to blame his Republican gubernatorial opponent, Judy Baar Topinka, for a $5 billion state budget deficit that he says was amassed during the administration of former Gov. George Ryan.
Especially when Blagojevich himself has made such a botch of state finances. Especially when Blagojevich, the charade meister, falsely claimed in 2003: "We will balance the budget and we will end the budget games. It took years of mismanagement and waste to create the mess we now face--and it will take tough times and tough choices to fix it."
But under Blagojevich, the budget games have swelled to Olympic-size proportions. Massive short-term borrowing to pay for everyday bills. Raiding the state pension fund to make his budget appear balanced. Loony proposals to sell state assets such as buildings and the lottery. All kinds of unaffordable new spending on programs that look good in a campaign brochure, but whose effectiveness is suspect. These are signs of fiscal desperation. And still the deficit grows.
Blagojevich is counting on voters to be stupid or bored enough to blame Topinka for Ryan's mess. But as state treasurer, Topinka doesn't propose or enact the budget. She has no control over how much or where money is spent.
True, she could have been more critical of the fiscal irresponsibility of Ryan and the Democratic-controlled legislature. But as for Blagojevich blaming her for Ryan's mess, she's no more responsible for Ryan's mess than she is for Blagojevich's.
The numbers from Controller Dan Hynes, a member of the governor's own party, tell the story. For example, Blagojevich's recently released comprehensive financial statements for fiscal year 2005, ending June 30 of last year, show that the general fund deficit was about 22 percent larger than the deficit at the end of the previous year, a $569 million increase. And the updated quarterly report shows that the fiscal year 2006 deficit, on this June 30, was $3.064 billion.
Incredibly, Blagojevich brags that he has "eliminated" the deficit, but that's only if he ignores--which he does--about $7.5 billion of unpaid bills that are left for someone in the future to pay. That includes almost $3 billion in unpaid medical costs.
Then there is the incredible amount of borrowing to pull off the deception of a "balanced" budget. Illinois has the nation's third-highest bond debt and the sixth-highest per-capita debt, according to Moody's Investors Service. To simplify: This is like going to the bank for a loan to buy groceries.
Cook County taxpayers can be doubly thankful for the governor's legerdemain. Partly because the state is way behind in reimbursing the county for certain medical costs, the Cook County Board recently was forced to take out a line of credit of as much as $200 million to keep up with its bills. As if the county's budget weren't confused and ugly enough already.
None of this seems to bother the Blagojevich administration. State budget director John Filan recently told the Rockford Register Star, "In terms of day-to-day running the joint, so to speak, we've taken in more money than we've spent in terms of expenditures."
The reality, however, is: Despite a surprisingly large increase in state revenue from an improving economy, the budget still is in the red.
Think of it in terms of a household budget. Say you're making more money this year than last. But you're spending more and you've added to your credit card debt so that you can say that you've balanced your budget. At the same time, you push off current bills until next year, acting as if they aren't past due. If you include everything that describes your financial health, you're in the fast lane to bankruptcy. But if you want to be a jerk about it, you pretend everything is fine.
Just like Blagojevich.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
It takes a huge helping of gall for Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to blame his Republican gubernatorial opponent, Judy Baar Topinka, for a $5 billion state budget deficit that he says was amassed during the administration of former Gov. George Ryan.
Especially when Blagojevich himself has made such a botch of state finances. Especially when Blagojevich, the charade meister, falsely claimed in 2003: "We will balance the budget and we will end the budget games. It took years of mismanagement and waste to create the mess we now face--and it will take tough times and tough choices to fix it."
But under Blagojevich, the budget games have swelled to Olympic-size proportions. Massive short-term borrowing to pay for everyday bills. Raiding the state pension fund to make his budget appear balanced. Loony proposals to sell state assets such as buildings and the lottery. All kinds of unaffordable new spending on programs that look good in a campaign brochure, but whose effectiveness is suspect. These are signs of fiscal desperation. And still the deficit grows.
Blagojevich is counting on voters to be stupid or bored enough to blame Topinka for Ryan's mess. But as state treasurer, Topinka doesn't propose or enact the budget. She has no control over how much or where money is spent.
True, she could have been more critical of the fiscal irresponsibility of Ryan and the Democratic-controlled legislature. But as for Blagojevich blaming her for Ryan's mess, she's no more responsible for Ryan's mess than she is for Blagojevich's.
The numbers from Controller Dan Hynes, a member of the governor's own party, tell the story. For example, Blagojevich's recently released comprehensive financial statements for fiscal year 2005, ending June 30 of last year, show that the general fund deficit was about 22 percent larger than the deficit at the end of the previous year, a $569 million increase. And the updated quarterly report shows that the fiscal year 2006 deficit, on this June 30, was $3.064 billion.
Incredibly, Blagojevich brags that he has "eliminated" the deficit, but that's only if he ignores--which he does--about $7.5 billion of unpaid bills that are left for someone in the future to pay. That includes almost $3 billion in unpaid medical costs.
Then there is the incredible amount of borrowing to pull off the deception of a "balanced" budget. Illinois has the nation's third-highest bond debt and the sixth-highest per-capita debt, according to Moody's Investors Service. To simplify: This is like going to the bank for a loan to buy groceries.
Cook County taxpayers can be doubly thankful for the governor's legerdemain. Partly because the state is way behind in reimbursing the county for certain medical costs, the Cook County Board recently was forced to take out a line of credit of as much as $200 million to keep up with its bills. As if the county's budget weren't confused and ugly enough already.
None of this seems to bother the Blagojevich administration. State budget director John Filan recently told the Rockford Register Star, "In terms of day-to-day running the joint, so to speak, we've taken in more money than we've spent in terms of expenditures."
The reality, however, is: Despite a surprisingly large increase in state revenue from an improving economy, the budget still is in the red.
Think of it in terms of a household budget. Say you're making more money this year than last. But you're spending more and you've added to your credit card debt so that you can say that you've balanced your budget. At the same time, you push off current bills until next year, acting as if they aren't past due. If you include everything that describes your financial health, you're in the fast lane to bankruptcy. But if you want to be a jerk about it, you pretend everything is fine.
Just like Blagojevich.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Monday, July 24, 2006
Fiefdom politics in Cook County
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
Aristocracy --Government by a small group of people, especially hereditary nobility.
Or maybe feudalism is a more apt description of Cook County government as run by Democratic Party bosses, as they demonstrated last week by installing the unqualified Todd Stroger as the next lord of the realm.
Feudalism --The dominant social system in medieval Europe in which the nobility held lands from the crown, in exchange for military service. Vassals, in turn, were tenants of the nobles. Their serfs were obliged to live on their lord's land and give him homage, labor and a share of the produce, in exchange for military protection.
Just substitute "government jobs" for "land" and you're on your way to understanding the dominant political system in medieval Cook County. Like serfs and vassals, the patronage workers give the lord homage, labor and a share of the political produce, in exchange for job protection.
It took Europeans centuries to free themselves from the servitude of feudalism. How long will it take for the voters and taxpayers of Cook County? If they don't do it now, they'll never do it.
Because they will have demonstrated that there is no insult, no abuse they cannot endure.
Yet, there's hope. They'll need a plan to combat the blindly loyal serfs as they come marching out of Castle Stroger during the campaign to inflict grave wounds on the citizens of Cook County. It would take:
- An uprising of Democrats. Not as far-fetched as it seems. Cook County Commissioner Forrest Claypool received almost half of the vote in the Democratic primary for County Board president. True, Todd Stroger's father John, the incumbent Claypool challenged, had just suffered a stroke, making his ability to handle the job suspect. And some Republicans were crossing over to vote for Claypool, believing it was their best bet for cleaning up government. Still, many Democrats did show an ability to protest the many failings of the "system" by voting against the elder Stroger.
- Fed up African-American voters. Predictions that they'll dutifully vote for Todd Stroger because of his race imply an insulting stereotype. Perhaps some black voters may look at it this way: Stroger is a creature of a political organization headed by Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, the same man who as state's attorney outrageously ignored the warning signs that Jon Burge and other police detectives were torturing African-American suspects.
Moreover, some black voters might not buy the deeply flawed logic that the endless nepotism of white politicians justifies the same fault in black politicians. And some black voters might be just as sick as white voters of "the way things are," as they most assuredly are in county government. And that the Stroger anointment is simply another example of fiefdom politics as practiced by the Daley vassals on the Cook County Democratic Central Committee.
- Democratic social liberals with a conscience. As much as they would loathe to vote for anyone who doesn't share their views (such as some social conservatives), they might dampen their ideological purity to do something right and vote for Todd Stroger's opponent, Republican Commissioner Tony Peraica.
- Seriously reinvigorated county GOP. Might the business and civic leaders who have signed on to the Daley-Stroger-Democratic organization decide for once to support their natural allies in the GOP?
Those are a lot of ifs, but with regular GOP voters, maybe they can build a new reform coalition that can end the practices that Todd Stroger's puppeteers represent. The puppeteers' strategy, of course, will be to argue that he is independent, competent and a refreshingly new voice for honest and efficient government. Maybe the strategy will work because the rest of us will be laid up, our sides split from laughter, and unable to make it to the polls.
What does Stroger represent? Consider: His biography shows a long series of government jobs, while proudly proclaiming that in 1994 he joined the SBK-Brooks Investment Corp., even though his resume shows no prior investment banking experience. Maybe his old man didn't clout Todd into the job. But the regional investment banking firm's Web site lists its involvement as co-manager of more than $1 billion in bond deals with Cook County and additional hundreds of millions with other Illinois and local governments.
Draw your own conclusions. Mine is: If Stroger is elected, nothing will change. Absolutely nothing.
Chicago Tribune
Aristocracy --Government by a small group of people, especially hereditary nobility.
Or maybe feudalism is a more apt description of Cook County government as run by Democratic Party bosses, as they demonstrated last week by installing the unqualified Todd Stroger as the next lord of the realm.
Feudalism --The dominant social system in medieval Europe in which the nobility held lands from the crown, in exchange for military service. Vassals, in turn, were tenants of the nobles. Their serfs were obliged to live on their lord's land and give him homage, labor and a share of the produce, in exchange for military protection.
Just substitute "government jobs" for "land" and you're on your way to understanding the dominant political system in medieval Cook County. Like serfs and vassals, the patronage workers give the lord homage, labor and a share of the political produce, in exchange for job protection.
It took Europeans centuries to free themselves from the servitude of feudalism. How long will it take for the voters and taxpayers of Cook County? If they don't do it now, they'll never do it.
Because they will have demonstrated that there is no insult, no abuse they cannot endure.
Yet, there's hope. They'll need a plan to combat the blindly loyal serfs as they come marching out of Castle Stroger during the campaign to inflict grave wounds on the citizens of Cook County. It would take:
- An uprising of Democrats. Not as far-fetched as it seems. Cook County Commissioner Forrest Claypool received almost half of the vote in the Democratic primary for County Board president. True, Todd Stroger's father John, the incumbent Claypool challenged, had just suffered a stroke, making his ability to handle the job suspect. And some Republicans were crossing over to vote for Claypool, believing it was their best bet for cleaning up government. Still, many Democrats did show an ability to protest the many failings of the "system" by voting against the elder Stroger.
- Fed up African-American voters. Predictions that they'll dutifully vote for Todd Stroger because of his race imply an insulting stereotype. Perhaps some black voters may look at it this way: Stroger is a creature of a political organization headed by Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, the same man who as state's attorney outrageously ignored the warning signs that Jon Burge and other police detectives were torturing African-American suspects.
Moreover, some black voters might not buy the deeply flawed logic that the endless nepotism of white politicians justifies the same fault in black politicians. And some black voters might be just as sick as white voters of "the way things are," as they most assuredly are in county government. And that the Stroger anointment is simply another example of fiefdom politics as practiced by the Daley vassals on the Cook County Democratic Central Committee.
- Democratic social liberals with a conscience. As much as they would loathe to vote for anyone who doesn't share their views (such as some social conservatives), they might dampen their ideological purity to do something right and vote for Todd Stroger's opponent, Republican Commissioner Tony Peraica.
- Seriously reinvigorated county GOP. Might the business and civic leaders who have signed on to the Daley-Stroger-Democratic organization decide for once to support their natural allies in the GOP?
Those are a lot of ifs, but with regular GOP voters, maybe they can build a new reform coalition that can end the practices that Todd Stroger's puppeteers represent. The puppeteers' strategy, of course, will be to argue that he is independent, competent and a refreshingly new voice for honest and efficient government. Maybe the strategy will work because the rest of us will be laid up, our sides split from laughter, and unable to make it to the polls.
What does Stroger represent? Consider: His biography shows a long series of government jobs, while proudly proclaiming that in 1994 he joined the SBK-Brooks Investment Corp., even though his resume shows no prior investment banking experience. Maybe his old man didn't clout Todd into the job. But the regional investment banking firm's Web site lists its involvement as co-manager of more than $1 billion in bond deals with Cook County and additional hundreds of millions with other Illinois and local governments.
Draw your own conclusions. Mine is: If Stroger is elected, nothing will change. Absolutely nothing.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Bring in the Troops
By Dennis Byrne
Leaders call for international military force to impose peace in worsening Israeli, Lebanon conflict--News item.
Gee, now why didn't someone think of that sooner? Like 45 years ago?
You'd think that there would have been calls for an international military force years ago to keep Israelis, Palestinians and the rest of that bunch from cutting each other up. After all, similar calls have routinely gone out to cool bloodthirsty conflicts in places like the former Yugoslavia, Sudan, Somalia and Rwanda. So, why doesn't the same logic apply to protecting innocent lives in Israel and surrounding lands?
Maybe it has something to do with the last time the United States tried it in 1983. More than 200 Marines died in their Beirut barracks from a terrorist bombing. The U.S. hightailed it out of there and never returned.
Now United Nations Sec. Gen. Kofi Annan has called for the deployment of a multilateral force to Lebanon. So has British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who said, "The blunt reality is that this violence is not going to stop unless we create the conditions for the cessation of violence. The only way is if we have a deployment of international forces that can stop bombardment coming into Israel."
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert quickly opposed the plan, based on the belief that it won't work while also depriving Israel of the right to defend itself. Instead, according to some reports, he wants Lebanese forces to take control of the border and disarm the Hezbollah, the terrorist group which set off this most recent havoc.
What Lebanese forces? Olmert must be making a joke.
Continue at realclearpolitics.com
Leaders call for international military force to impose peace in worsening Israeli, Lebanon conflict--News item.
Gee, now why didn't someone think of that sooner? Like 45 years ago?
You'd think that there would have been calls for an international military force years ago to keep Israelis, Palestinians and the rest of that bunch from cutting each other up. After all, similar calls have routinely gone out to cool bloodthirsty conflicts in places like the former Yugoslavia, Sudan, Somalia and Rwanda. So, why doesn't the same logic apply to protecting innocent lives in Israel and surrounding lands?
Maybe it has something to do with the last time the United States tried it in 1983. More than 200 Marines died in their Beirut barracks from a terrorist bombing. The U.S. hightailed it out of there and never returned.
Now United Nations Sec. Gen. Kofi Annan has called for the deployment of a multilateral force to Lebanon. So has British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who said, "The blunt reality is that this violence is not going to stop unless we create the conditions for the cessation of violence. The only way is if we have a deployment of international forces that can stop bombardment coming into Israel."
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert quickly opposed the plan, based on the belief that it won't work while also depriving Israel of the right to defend itself. Instead, according to some reports, he wants Lebanese forces to take control of the border and disarm the Hezbollah, the terrorist group which set off this most recent havoc.
What Lebanese forces? Olmert must be making a joke.
Continue at realclearpolitics.com
Monday, July 17, 2006
In search of employment
Will Chicago aldermen suffer an outbreak of good sense and reject a city wage law?
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
We suburbanites will have to send Chicago City Council members our thanks if they make it harder for big retail stores to operate in the city.
It'll mean more sales and property tax revenue for our local governments, more jobs for our residents, more money for us.
Obviously (to everyone but the aldermen), Chicago aldermen would better serve their constituents by welcoming the business of the Wal-Marts, Targets, Kmarts and other "big box" retailers into depressed city neighborhoods whose residents really need the jobs.
But some aldermen are poised to adopt an ordinance on July 26 telling retailers with Chicago stores of more than 90,000 square feet or more than $1 billion in gross sales how much to pay their employees who work more than five hours a week. (They'd also tell them they couldn't refuse to hire convicts.)
For the "nonpartisan" Economic Policy Institute--which regularly supports such liberal causes--the ordinance is of global importance. Chicago, it exclaimed, is in the "throes of fundamental debate about the future direction of the American economy and its workers, one that touches on our most pressing concerns, from globalization to the role of government."
For this Washington-based group, it should be no big deal for Chicago to slit its own throat by adopting an ordinance that would require a minimum starting wage of $10 an hour and $3 an hour of health-care benefits by 2010. Its "analysis" said it would merely increase the price of a pair of $1 Wal-Mart socks less than a cent. Or reduce its profit margin by less than a percentage point.
"A more logical course of action by a well-run company would be to reduce their work force by 20 percent," responded David Vite, president of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association. The trade group figures that the ordinance would increase labor costs 40 percent to 50 percent in stores that have an average profit margin of just 1 percent to 2 percent. It also argues that any government-imposed increased labor costs should be across-the-board nationally, to avoid discriminating against larger businesses or certain geographic areas.
But it doesn't really matter whether prices increase a penny, nickel or dime. What counts is what the retailers think, because they are free to open or close stores wherever they want. This does not make them evil, no more than shopping for the best bargain or searching for a higher-paying job makes you evil. It makes them businesspeople, although in some people's eyes, that automatically makes them evil. If they conclude that the economics of doing business in the city won't work, then they won't do business in the city. Simple as that.
And if they decide to take their business elsewhere, who will that hurt? Chicago's unemployed citizens who live in neighborhoods with high joblessness. Those with limited skills who are looking for entry-level jobs. The city's employed who, again, will have to find a way to get to the more numerous suburban jobs. Chicago shoppers who will have to go the extra mile to find a wider, better and more affordable selection of merchandise. But nuts to them; the aldermen have bigger fish to fry.
You'd think that the aldermen would have learned by now. A few years ago, they rejected a Wal-Mart proposal to build two stores in Chicago. The council only allowed one--on the West Side--forcing the company to find a site in Evergreen Park. Some 25,000 people applied for the 325 jobs in the store, which produced about $1 million in sales and property taxes for the suburb. Money and jobs Chicago could have had.
Why are aldermen acting so stupidly? To placate organized labor, which wants government to do the union's work for it by enforcing wage and work rules that it can't bargain into place by itself. As usual, its handmaidens are aldermen who value the political organizing muscle and campaign contributions that labor provides more than the good of their city.
But, you never know when a majority of aldermen might suffer an outbreak of good sense and reject the ordinance. So let's get in touch with them now, to encourage them to do what's good for the suburbs. We suburbanites also should encourage organized labor to keep up its pressure on the aldermen. Because that's how the "city that works" works so well for suburbanites.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
We suburbanites will have to send Chicago City Council members our thanks if they make it harder for big retail stores to operate in the city.
It'll mean more sales and property tax revenue for our local governments, more jobs for our residents, more money for us.
Obviously (to everyone but the aldermen), Chicago aldermen would better serve their constituents by welcoming the business of the Wal-Marts, Targets, Kmarts and other "big box" retailers into depressed city neighborhoods whose residents really need the jobs.
But some aldermen are poised to adopt an ordinance on July 26 telling retailers with Chicago stores of more than 90,000 square feet or more than $1 billion in gross sales how much to pay their employees who work more than five hours a week. (They'd also tell them they couldn't refuse to hire convicts.)
For the "nonpartisan" Economic Policy Institute--which regularly supports such liberal causes--the ordinance is of global importance. Chicago, it exclaimed, is in the "throes of fundamental debate about the future direction of the American economy and its workers, one that touches on our most pressing concerns, from globalization to the role of government."
For this Washington-based group, it should be no big deal for Chicago to slit its own throat by adopting an ordinance that would require a minimum starting wage of $10 an hour and $3 an hour of health-care benefits by 2010. Its "analysis" said it would merely increase the price of a pair of $1 Wal-Mart socks less than a cent. Or reduce its profit margin by less than a percentage point.
"A more logical course of action by a well-run company would be to reduce their work force by 20 percent," responded David Vite, president of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association. The trade group figures that the ordinance would increase labor costs 40 percent to 50 percent in stores that have an average profit margin of just 1 percent to 2 percent. It also argues that any government-imposed increased labor costs should be across-the-board nationally, to avoid discriminating against larger businesses or certain geographic areas.
But it doesn't really matter whether prices increase a penny, nickel or dime. What counts is what the retailers think, because they are free to open or close stores wherever they want. This does not make them evil, no more than shopping for the best bargain or searching for a higher-paying job makes you evil. It makes them businesspeople, although in some people's eyes, that automatically makes them evil. If they conclude that the economics of doing business in the city won't work, then they won't do business in the city. Simple as that.
And if they decide to take their business elsewhere, who will that hurt? Chicago's unemployed citizens who live in neighborhoods with high joblessness. Those with limited skills who are looking for entry-level jobs. The city's employed who, again, will have to find a way to get to the more numerous suburban jobs. Chicago shoppers who will have to go the extra mile to find a wider, better and more affordable selection of merchandise. But nuts to them; the aldermen have bigger fish to fry.
You'd think that the aldermen would have learned by now. A few years ago, they rejected a Wal-Mart proposal to build two stores in Chicago. The council only allowed one--on the West Side--forcing the company to find a site in Evergreen Park. Some 25,000 people applied for the 325 jobs in the store, which produced about $1 million in sales and property taxes for the suburb. Money and jobs Chicago could have had.
Why are aldermen acting so stupidly? To placate organized labor, which wants government to do the union's work for it by enforcing wage and work rules that it can't bargain into place by itself. As usual, its handmaidens are aldermen who value the political organizing muscle and campaign contributions that labor provides more than the good of their city.
But, you never know when a majority of aldermen might suffer an outbreak of good sense and reject the ordinance. So let's get in touch with them now, to encourage them to do what's good for the suburbs. We suburbanites also should encourage organized labor to keep up its pressure on the aldermen. Because that's how the "city that works" works so well for suburbanites.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Monday, July 10, 2006
Independence Day for City Hall
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
Political consultant David Axelrod is absolutely right: Whatever federal juries may conclude about the illegalities of the Chicago patronage system, the voters of Chicago will re-elect Mayor Richard M. Daley, if he decides to run.
Maybe even if he decides not to run. Maybe without any opposition, even Spanky the Clown.
No matter how many indictments U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald obtains against patronage gatekeepers, grafters, insiders and schemers. Or how many federal juries convict the system's practitioners, as one did last week with Daley's former top patronage aide and three others on charges arising from a system of placing campaign workers on the city payroll.
Axelrod last week explained on WTTW's "Chicago Tonight" that voters would re-elect Daley because he's a great mayor who has done wonderful things for the city. And, as Axelrod implied in an article he wrote last year for the Tribune's Perspective section, the alternative of a system in which workers aren't recommended by "elected officials, business, labor and community leaders" is as scary as the federal bureaucracy. As the widely accepted (in Chicago) argument goes: Hiring sponsored workers makes them more responsive to their bosses and their bosses more accountable to voters.
Except the patronage system is not as benign as Axelrod and its supporters would have it. No need to go over the evidence of how the system has dumped incompetents into such important positions that are supposed to protect public safety. Someone needs to explain how the existence of thousands of incompetents, slackers and no-shows on the public payroll makes for a better city. And how workers responsible only to their political sponsors ensure quality. Yeah sure, thousands of energetic and competent workers are on the payroll, and so what? Aren't they all supposed to be energetic and competent? Isn't that what taxpayers are paying for?
Those who argue that a well-oiled machine makes for a "wunnerful" city engage in a fundamental logical error: The simultaneous presence of a patronage army and the existence of a viable city is not automatic proof that the first causes the second.
Dare I suggest that things beyond Daley's patronage workers, contractor buddies and City Hall itself may also account for Chicago's success? That the city rose on an expanding national economy and lifestyle choices made by yuppies and others who value urban living? Or that the city's success came in spite of a system that encourages dishonesty and corruption?
This apparently is a hard concept for Chicago voters to grasp, as they reliably march to the polls to ratify misconduct and fraud. Among their numbers are the tens of thousands who directly benefit, through jobs and contracts. And the tens of thousands more who indirectly benefit from relatives and friends on the payroll. And the uncounted more in business, labor, civic and neighborhood organizations who buy their way inside. Also include the misguided who honestly believe that illegality is necessary for success, illegal as in violating civil and criminal law.
Such is Chicago's lore, fed by those of us in the media who enjoy writing about it, who value graft for its humor and entertainment. Reformers like Robert Merriam and Martin Kennelly are mocked as ineffective daydreamers, and perhaps they were. While newspaper editorial boards are fuming about corruption, favoritism, secrecy and nepotism at the city, county and state levels, commentators, historians, authors and others are getting their jollies describing the goofiness and grittiness of it all. It's all part of the city's patina.
What I'm trying to say is that the network of political, business, labor, community, media and other interests has become so invested in the system that few are left to risk being labeled excessively moralistic for protesting the "way things work."
One clear symptom is the nearly complete absence of what used to be a vibrant community of political independents, something of a loyal opposition that brought the force of conscience into the public arena. Nobody wants to be a "do-gooder." How ironic, then, that Daley recently complained about the City Council messing around with a proposal to ban Chicago restaurants from using cooking oils that contain trans fats. Maybe if he gave the aldermen something real to do, they wouldn't be wasting the taxpayers' time with such nonsense.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
Political consultant David Axelrod is absolutely right: Whatever federal juries may conclude about the illegalities of the Chicago patronage system, the voters of Chicago will re-elect Mayor Richard M. Daley, if he decides to run.
Maybe even if he decides not to run. Maybe without any opposition, even Spanky the Clown.
No matter how many indictments U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald obtains against patronage gatekeepers, grafters, insiders and schemers. Or how many federal juries convict the system's practitioners, as one did last week with Daley's former top patronage aide and three others on charges arising from a system of placing campaign workers on the city payroll.
Axelrod last week explained on WTTW's "Chicago Tonight" that voters would re-elect Daley because he's a great mayor who has done wonderful things for the city. And, as Axelrod implied in an article he wrote last year for the Tribune's Perspective section, the alternative of a system in which workers aren't recommended by "elected officials, business, labor and community leaders" is as scary as the federal bureaucracy. As the widely accepted (in Chicago) argument goes: Hiring sponsored workers makes them more responsive to their bosses and their bosses more accountable to voters.
Except the patronage system is not as benign as Axelrod and its supporters would have it. No need to go over the evidence of how the system has dumped incompetents into such important positions that are supposed to protect public safety. Someone needs to explain how the existence of thousands of incompetents, slackers and no-shows on the public payroll makes for a better city. And how workers responsible only to their political sponsors ensure quality. Yeah sure, thousands of energetic and competent workers are on the payroll, and so what? Aren't they all supposed to be energetic and competent? Isn't that what taxpayers are paying for?
Those who argue that a well-oiled machine makes for a "wunnerful" city engage in a fundamental logical error: The simultaneous presence of a patronage army and the existence of a viable city is not automatic proof that the first causes the second.
Dare I suggest that things beyond Daley's patronage workers, contractor buddies and City Hall itself may also account for Chicago's success? That the city rose on an expanding national economy and lifestyle choices made by yuppies and others who value urban living? Or that the city's success came in spite of a system that encourages dishonesty and corruption?
This apparently is a hard concept for Chicago voters to grasp, as they reliably march to the polls to ratify misconduct and fraud. Among their numbers are the tens of thousands who directly benefit, through jobs and contracts. And the tens of thousands more who indirectly benefit from relatives and friends on the payroll. And the uncounted more in business, labor, civic and neighborhood organizations who buy their way inside. Also include the misguided who honestly believe that illegality is necessary for success, illegal as in violating civil and criminal law.
Such is Chicago's lore, fed by those of us in the media who enjoy writing about it, who value graft for its humor and entertainment. Reformers like Robert Merriam and Martin Kennelly are mocked as ineffective daydreamers, and perhaps they were. While newspaper editorial boards are fuming about corruption, favoritism, secrecy and nepotism at the city, county and state levels, commentators, historians, authors and others are getting their jollies describing the goofiness and grittiness of it all. It's all part of the city's patina.
What I'm trying to say is that the network of political, business, labor, community, media and other interests has become so invested in the system that few are left to risk being labeled excessively moralistic for protesting the "way things work."
One clear symptom is the nearly complete absence of what used to be a vibrant community of political independents, something of a loyal opposition that brought the force of conscience into the public arena. Nobody wants to be a "do-gooder." How ironic, then, that Daley recently complained about the City Council messing around with a proposal to ban Chicago restaurants from using cooking oils that contain trans fats. Maybe if he gave the aldermen something real to do, they wouldn't be wasting the taxpayers' time with such nonsense.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Save Patrick Fitzgerald
By Dennis Byrne
President Bush faces a major test of his integrity when, or if, he ever gets around to reappointing Patrick Fitzgerald as U.S. Attorney in Chicago.
The nation needs to know that Bush's failure to back Fitzgerald will betray a gapping hole in the conscience of the president. While most of America may think of Fitzgerald as the aggressive prosecutor in the Valerie Plame affair and the bombing of the World Trade Center, those of us in Chicago have a closer view of the man.
He is one of the few government officials left in Chicago and Illinois that loathes corruption, and who is in a position to do something about as the U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois.
In that role, he has put away former Illinois Gov. George Ryan and a host of other grafters. He is scrutinizing current Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration for its hiring practices. And he is hot on the trail of the corruption that pervades Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's City Hall. Score another for Fitzgerald as a federal jury this week convicted Daley's patronage chief and three other men on charges that they engaged in an elaborate and long-running scheme to reward the mayor's campaign workers with choice jobs.
Read more at realclearpolitics.com
President Bush faces a major test of his integrity when, or if, he ever gets around to reappointing Patrick Fitzgerald as U.S. Attorney in Chicago.
The nation needs to know that Bush's failure to back Fitzgerald will betray a gapping hole in the conscience of the president. While most of America may think of Fitzgerald as the aggressive prosecutor in the Valerie Plame affair and the bombing of the World Trade Center, those of us in Chicago have a closer view of the man.
He is one of the few government officials left in Chicago and Illinois that loathes corruption, and who is in a position to do something about as the U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois.
In that role, he has put away former Illinois Gov. George Ryan and a host of other grafters. He is scrutinizing current Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration for its hiring practices. And he is hot on the trail of the corruption that pervades Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's City Hall. Score another for Fitzgerald as a federal jury this week convicted Daley's patronage chief and three other men on charges that they engaged in an elaborate and long-running scheme to reward the mayor's campaign workers with choice jobs.
Read more at realclearpolitics.com
Monday, July 03, 2006
Contorting the law as a rebuke
By Dennis Byrne
Now that we've exhausted ourselves arguing the politics of the U.S. Supreme Court's "repudiation" of the Bush administration's handling of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, maybe we can take a closer look at the decision itself.
Whatever you think of Thursday's ruling that gives Osama bin Laden's driver and bodyguard the same protections as prisoners of war who fight in uniform and by the rules, the path to this conclusion was twisting, indeed.
For example: Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the decision, said the war against terror is not an "international conflict." He had to say this to arrive at the conclusion that the detainee, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, is just another prisoner of war who deserves the same legal protections as our own soldiers under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. You'd have to read his opinion to fathom his reasoning, but to suggest that the terrorist war being waged against us is just some localized conflict defies fact.
He also said (as paraphrased from the case syllabus):
- It is "unsound" to presume that the field-grade military officer who would preside over Hamdan's case would conduct the proceedings "in good faith and according to law." Why? Because if his prison sentence is "less than 10 years," he has no right to a federal court review of the commission's decision. (In other words, a military judge would be so biased that he would allow Hamdan off with less than a 10-year sentence, just to escape an appeal. Amazing.) And because he "will be and, indeed, already has been excluded from his own trial." Excluded?
Read on.
- It is a violation of the Geneva Conventions to prevent Hamdan from sitting and listening to classified evidence against him. That would include information about who turned him in, how the government tracks terrorists and a load of other intelligence useful to them. It's not enough that Hamdan's appointed military counsel has access to all that information. Never mind that the judge is not required to exclude Hamdan; the rules only gave the judge the discretion to--but then again, we can't trust the judge.
- While Hamdan is charged with conspiracy, that crime has "rarely if ever been tried as such" by any U.S. military commission, nor does the charge appear in the Geneva or The Hague Conventions. Here I guess that Stevens means that because war criminals are rarely tried for conspiracy, Hamdan and others should never be tried for it. By the way, our own soldiers can be tried for conspiracy under the UCMJ, but I guess that part of the code doesn't apply to Hamdan.
- Even if he could be charged with conspiracy, the commission wouldn't have jurisdiction to try Hamdan on it because he is not "alleged to have committed any overt act in a theater of war or on any specified date after Sept. 11, 2001." As if the United States isn't in the theater of war. As if post-Sept. 11 acts are beyond the commission's reach.
- Common Article 2 of Geneva Conventions doesn't apply; Common Article 3 does. This takes some explaining. Article 2 says signatories to the convention (meaning us) have to abide by the provisions of the convention only if the other side (Al Qaeda) accepts those provisions. Since we can't just dial up bin Laden to ask whether he would refrain from taking hostages--as if we didn't know the answer--it's clear, to me anyway, that the Geneva Conventions don't apply. Stevens, however, just brushes aside Article 2, as if it didn't exist. Article 3, which provides some protections for Hamdan, applies, Stevens said, because the war on terror isn't an international war (there it is again).
By most accounts, Article 3 was meant for internal civil wars, and Article 2 for international wars. Here's the exact language of the convention: Article 3 applies in cases of "armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one or more of the [signatories]." Article 2 says signatories shall be "bound by the Convention in relation to the [non-signer], if the latter accepts and applies the provisions there of."
I'm not a lawyer, but I can read. And what I read is a desperate effort by one of the court's most liberal members to twist the law to obtain the desired outcome, which is "a stunning rebuke" to the Bush administration.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Now that we've exhausted ourselves arguing the politics of the U.S. Supreme Court's "repudiation" of the Bush administration's handling of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, maybe we can take a closer look at the decision itself.
Whatever you think of Thursday's ruling that gives Osama bin Laden's driver and bodyguard the same protections as prisoners of war who fight in uniform and by the rules, the path to this conclusion was twisting, indeed.
For example: Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the decision, said the war against terror is not an "international conflict." He had to say this to arrive at the conclusion that the detainee, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, is just another prisoner of war who deserves the same legal protections as our own soldiers under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. You'd have to read his opinion to fathom his reasoning, but to suggest that the terrorist war being waged against us is just some localized conflict defies fact.
He also said (as paraphrased from the case syllabus):
- It is "unsound" to presume that the field-grade military officer who would preside over Hamdan's case would conduct the proceedings "in good faith and according to law." Why? Because if his prison sentence is "less than 10 years," he has no right to a federal court review of the commission's decision. (In other words, a military judge would be so biased that he would allow Hamdan off with less than a 10-year sentence, just to escape an appeal. Amazing.) And because he "will be and, indeed, already has been excluded from his own trial." Excluded?
Read on.
- It is a violation of the Geneva Conventions to prevent Hamdan from sitting and listening to classified evidence against him. That would include information about who turned him in, how the government tracks terrorists and a load of other intelligence useful to them. It's not enough that Hamdan's appointed military counsel has access to all that information. Never mind that the judge is not required to exclude Hamdan; the rules only gave the judge the discretion to--but then again, we can't trust the judge.
- While Hamdan is charged with conspiracy, that crime has "rarely if ever been tried as such" by any U.S. military commission, nor does the charge appear in the Geneva or The Hague Conventions. Here I guess that Stevens means that because war criminals are rarely tried for conspiracy, Hamdan and others should never be tried for it. By the way, our own soldiers can be tried for conspiracy under the UCMJ, but I guess that part of the code doesn't apply to Hamdan.
- Even if he could be charged with conspiracy, the commission wouldn't have jurisdiction to try Hamdan on it because he is not "alleged to have committed any overt act in a theater of war or on any specified date after Sept. 11, 2001." As if the United States isn't in the theater of war. As if post-Sept. 11 acts are beyond the commission's reach.
- Common Article 2 of Geneva Conventions doesn't apply; Common Article 3 does. This takes some explaining. Article 2 says signatories to the convention (meaning us) have to abide by the provisions of the convention only if the other side (Al Qaeda) accepts those provisions. Since we can't just dial up bin Laden to ask whether he would refrain from taking hostages--as if we didn't know the answer--it's clear, to me anyway, that the Geneva Conventions don't apply. Stevens, however, just brushes aside Article 2, as if it didn't exist. Article 3, which provides some protections for Hamdan, applies, Stevens said, because the war on terror isn't an international war (there it is again).
By most accounts, Article 3 was meant for internal civil wars, and Article 2 for international wars. Here's the exact language of the convention: Article 3 applies in cases of "armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one or more of the [signatories]." Article 2 says signatories shall be "bound by the Convention in relation to the [non-signer], if the latter accepts and applies the provisions there of."
I'm not a lawyer, but I can read. And what I read is a desperate effort by one of the court's most liberal members to twist the law to obtain the desired outcome, which is "a stunning rebuke" to the Bush administration.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Cutting Through the Hyperbole on Hamdan
By Dennis Byrne
With all the confusion, rushed judgments and overheated rhetoric created by the U.S. Supreme Court's Hamdan complex decision, it's perhaps best to first look at what it does not do.
It does not:
• Satisfy the supposed demands of "world opinion:" the closing of the Guantanamo Bay camp and the immediate release of its detainees.
• Free Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the acknowledged driver and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden.
• Exclude Hamdan from a court martial or, if Congress decides, trail by a military tribunal.
• Say that Hamdan or any others cannot be held "for the duration of active hostilities."
• Require that he, or other detainees, be tried before a civilian court, as some anti-war activists had demanded.
• Prohibit the United States from detaining future enemy combatants.
Read the rest at RealClearPolitics.com
With all the confusion, rushed judgments and overheated rhetoric created by the U.S. Supreme Court's Hamdan complex decision, it's perhaps best to first look at what it does not do.
It does not:
• Satisfy the supposed demands of "world opinion:" the closing of the Guantanamo Bay camp and the immediate release of its detainees.
• Free Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the acknowledged driver and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden.
• Exclude Hamdan from a court martial or, if Congress decides, trail by a military tribunal.
• Say that Hamdan or any others cannot be held "for the duration of active hostilities."
• Require that he, or other detainees, be tried before a civilian court, as some anti-war activists had demanded.
• Prohibit the United States from detaining future enemy combatants.
Read the rest at RealClearPolitics.com
Monday, June 26, 2006
Guillen speaks: Do we really even care?
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
The men's locker room is where you get your butt snapped with a wet towel. Where names are called, insults hurled, dirty stories told and resounding belches brought up. All without penalty.
It's called "locker room humor" for a reason. It is the last refuge of what a clever TV commercial calls "man law," where indignities, slurs and various disparagements are as constitutionally protected as the practice of religion in Old St. Pat's. It is the male safety valve, as effective as a woman's gentle touch in an anxious moment. It is crude, ribald, sweaty, smelly and possessed of all the ambiance of a jockstrap hung out to dry.
By logical and lawful extension, the locker room includes the courtside bench, sidelines and, in baseball, the dugout, where White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen recently committed the capital offense of disparaging a local sports columnist by calling him a name that insults gays.
It has caused pandemonium. News stories have flashed around the world, describing his breach. Columnists and talk-show hosts issued condemnations. Activists and the targeted columnist--Jay Mariotti of the Chicago Sun-Times--have called for Guillen's suspension, or worse. (Garroting has yet to come.) Of course, Mariotti has not noticed the irony of someone who has set world records for offending (that would be Mariotti) insisting that someone else should be removed, even temporarily, from his job for offending.
Losing a job for exercising a constitutionally protected right is a sanction that Guillen, and even Mariotti, should not suffer. But it appears that Major League Baseball has decided to succumb to the long arm of the "feelings" police. We now can truly say that no place is shielded from Big Brother's eyes and ears. We now, as a society, have become touchy beyond measure.
Nevermind the hypocrisy of it all. Up pops Rick Garcia of Equality Illinois (as his business plan requires) calling for "appropriate sanctions," including suspension for using the word. Here's someone who hurls his own insults, for example, by calling Cardinal Francis George a "bigot" and classifies those who disagree with him as "homophobes." Nevermind that Mariotti himself is one of the town's biggest name-callers.
True, Guillen could have called Mariotti something else; Guillen had so many fitting and accurate pejoratives to choose from. Also true, if Guillen had used any of those other pejoratives, sportswriters probably wouldn't have made much of it, because, charitably put, Mariotti is not the best loved by his colleagues.
Which brings up a question: Sportswriters unfailingly mention Guillen's penchant for using salty language. But much of that language never appears in print or on the air. So, why publish this one? No, seriously. Why publish one offensive thing and not publish another? Is there a hierarchy-of-insult list that someone keeps? Say "blah" and it gets on the news, but say "blah-blah" and it doesn't?
Actually, I've never understood how sportswriters work anyway. They're blessed by the fact that they've got plenty of drama to describe, right there on the field or court of play. All they have to do is show up at the assigned time. Usually with the benefit of preferred parking and preferred seats.
So, then, why is so much time spent describing the "action" in the locker room? And gathering post-game quotes? As I've said before, if the locker room action was more interesting than the on-field play, then viewers would be clamoring for more TV cameras in the locker rooms. We might even dispense with live TV coverage of the action.
Even more, this entire uproar occurred as the White Sox were clobbering one of the best teams in baseball, the team that was supposed to meet them in last year's World Series. That's enough excitement for me, and I bet if you asked most Chicagoans, it would be for them too. Most Chicagoans, I bet, would say that all this fighting over what Guillen can or cannot say sounds too much like manufactured news.
It's almost as if the White Sox had created a news vacuum by winning, and something stupid like this controversy had to be rushed in to fill it.
Copyright 2006, Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The men's locker room is where you get your butt snapped with a wet towel. Where names are called, insults hurled, dirty stories told and resounding belches brought up. All without penalty.
It's called "locker room humor" for a reason. It is the last refuge of what a clever TV commercial calls "man law," where indignities, slurs and various disparagements are as constitutionally protected as the practice of religion in Old St. Pat's. It is the male safety valve, as effective as a woman's gentle touch in an anxious moment. It is crude, ribald, sweaty, smelly and possessed of all the ambiance of a jockstrap hung out to dry.
By logical and lawful extension, the locker room includes the courtside bench, sidelines and, in baseball, the dugout, where White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen recently committed the capital offense of disparaging a local sports columnist by calling him a name that insults gays.
It has caused pandemonium. News stories have flashed around the world, describing his breach. Columnists and talk-show hosts issued condemnations. Activists and the targeted columnist--Jay Mariotti of the Chicago Sun-Times--have called for Guillen's suspension, or worse. (Garroting has yet to come.) Of course, Mariotti has not noticed the irony of someone who has set world records for offending (that would be Mariotti) insisting that someone else should be removed, even temporarily, from his job for offending.
Losing a job for exercising a constitutionally protected right is a sanction that Guillen, and even Mariotti, should not suffer. But it appears that Major League Baseball has decided to succumb to the long arm of the "feelings" police. We now can truly say that no place is shielded from Big Brother's eyes and ears. We now, as a society, have become touchy beyond measure.
Nevermind the hypocrisy of it all. Up pops Rick Garcia of Equality Illinois (as his business plan requires) calling for "appropriate sanctions," including suspension for using the word. Here's someone who hurls his own insults, for example, by calling Cardinal Francis George a "bigot" and classifies those who disagree with him as "homophobes." Nevermind that Mariotti himself is one of the town's biggest name-callers.
True, Guillen could have called Mariotti something else; Guillen had so many fitting and accurate pejoratives to choose from. Also true, if Guillen had used any of those other pejoratives, sportswriters probably wouldn't have made much of it, because, charitably put, Mariotti is not the best loved by his colleagues.
Which brings up a question: Sportswriters unfailingly mention Guillen's penchant for using salty language. But much of that language never appears in print or on the air. So, why publish this one? No, seriously. Why publish one offensive thing and not publish another? Is there a hierarchy-of-insult list that someone keeps? Say "blah" and it gets on the news, but say "blah-blah" and it doesn't?
Actually, I've never understood how sportswriters work anyway. They're blessed by the fact that they've got plenty of drama to describe, right there on the field or court of play. All they have to do is show up at the assigned time. Usually with the benefit of preferred parking and preferred seats.
So, then, why is so much time spent describing the "action" in the locker room? And gathering post-game quotes? As I've said before, if the locker room action was more interesting than the on-field play, then viewers would be clamoring for more TV cameras in the locker rooms. We might even dispense with live TV coverage of the action.
Even more, this entire uproar occurred as the White Sox were clobbering one of the best teams in baseball, the team that was supposed to meet them in last year's World Series. That's enough excitement for me, and I bet if you asked most Chicagoans, it would be for them too. Most Chicagoans, I bet, would say that all this fighting over what Guillen can or cannot say sounds too much like manufactured news.
It's almost as if the White Sox had created a news vacuum by winning, and something stupid like this controversy had to be rushed in to fill it.
Copyright 2006, Chicago Tribune
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Social Conservatives Were Right, Again
By Dennis Byrne
The number of the tributes in the mainstream media to dads over the Father's Day weekend was stunning, something that no one would have believed a decade ago.
Even liberal columnists were praising fathers, their own included, when not long ago it was a matter of progressive conviction to either ignore or ridicule the importance of fathers.
Even black columnists recently have been uttering the unthinkable, that the absence of fathers in the lives of African-American children has had a devastating impact of the social, psychological, economic and moral well being of their families. God bless them for having the courage to stand against same charges of racism that rained down on lonely social conservatives who were making the same point years ago.
Continue at RealClearPolitics.com
The number of the tributes in the mainstream media to dads over the Father's Day weekend was stunning, something that no one would have believed a decade ago.
Even liberal columnists were praising fathers, their own included, when not long ago it was a matter of progressive conviction to either ignore or ridicule the importance of fathers.
Even black columnists recently have been uttering the unthinkable, that the absence of fathers in the lives of African-American children has had a devastating impact of the social, psychological, economic and moral well being of their families. God bless them for having the courage to stand against same charges of racism that rained down on lonely social conservatives who were making the same point years ago.
Continue at RealClearPolitics.com
Friday, June 16, 2006
Bush Playing Like a Big Leaguer Again
By Dennis Byrne
Oops, President George Bush's approval rating has started to inch back up, so we media need to do something about it.
I got it; let's hint around that Bush was a coward for visiting Baghdad's "Green Zone," the protected American sector but, which we won't mention, is within range of mortars, etc.
News person Claire Shipman beat me to it on ABC's Good Morning America when she concluded her report on the president's surprise trip to Iraq: "There's a flip side of course; the fact that the president...had...to...sneak...into Baghdad [emphasis not added] hardly suggests a situation nearing stability there."
Back to you Robin Roberts at the anchor desk, for an endorsement: "Good point," Roberts seconded.
Good thing we had Claire to point it out; many people otherwise might have thought that Bush was on a stroll through Ramadi without a flack jacket. If you missed Claire's report, others showed up to remind us that Bush was cowering in an impenetrable stockade. Everyone from the left-wing flamers at the Guardian to Workers World. Which tells you the value of that commentary
Continue at realclearpolitics.com
Oops, President George Bush's approval rating has started to inch back up, so we media need to do something about it.
I got it; let's hint around that Bush was a coward for visiting Baghdad's "Green Zone," the protected American sector but, which we won't mention, is within range of mortars, etc.
News person Claire Shipman beat me to it on ABC's Good Morning America when she concluded her report on the president's surprise trip to Iraq: "There's a flip side of course; the fact that the president...had...to...sneak...into Baghdad [emphasis not added] hardly suggests a situation nearing stability there."
Back to you Robin Roberts at the anchor desk, for an endorsement: "Good point," Roberts seconded.
Good thing we had Claire to point it out; many people otherwise might have thought that Bush was on a stroll through Ramadi without a flack jacket. If you missed Claire's report, others showed up to remind us that Bush was cowering in an impenetrable stockade. Everyone from the left-wing flamers at the Guardian to Workers World. Which tells you the value of that commentary
Continue at realclearpolitics.com
Monday, June 12, 2006
Who's running Cook County?
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago John Stroger's family and friends are doing the Cook County Board president no favors by keeping his true medical condition a secret from the public.
If Stroger, 77, is healthy, as they say he is, then one hopes that he would order his doctors to make the kind of medical disclosures one expects from important public officials, including the president of the United States, who are "suspected" of being incapacitated.
I say suspected because months after his serious stroke on March 14, Cook County voters, to whom Stroger is accountable, still don't know if he is capable of running a $3 billion enterprise.
Yet last week when Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica (R-Riverside), Stroger's Republican opponent for the board presidency, reasonably asked for a doctor's accounting, some county commissioners turned on him with ridicule and anger.
It's disrespectful, they said. John Daley, chairman of the county's Finance Committee, declared it to be a "damn disgrace."
No, here's the disgrace: that tin-pot politicians on their high horses think that we are not entitled to know. That they are such vassals that, even though they're legally responsible for running the government, they're perfectly willing to be kept in Kremlin-like ignorance.
Those who demand to know Stroger's true condition are not the ones who are stomping on his dignity. It's Stroger's gatekeepers who are turning this process into an inexcusable joke.
This is such a high-stakes game that the insiders (the Stroger family?) dared to tell Rev. Jesse Jackson to take a hike when he asked to visit the president. Jackson, who has mediated international disputes, can't even get through the door on this one.
I hope that Stroger returns in good health to seek re-election. But if he does return, his health and the secrecy that surrounded his rehabilitation will be a suitable topic for debate, in addition to his record as president.
Read on
Leslie Pinney, a member of the Arlington Heights-based Township High School District 214 board, didn't deserve the tarring she got when she tried to exercise board control over what students are required to read.
I emphasize "required" because she wasn't trying to tell students what they "can" or "cannot" read, as at least one student put it. She wasn't trying to "ban" books from the classroom or the library. She wasn't trying to "burn" books or conduct Hitlerian censorship, as others hysterically would have it.
She is no guiltier of trying to "ban" books than any schoolteacher who makes up a class reading list and leaves certain books off, for whatever reasons.
Get it straight: When a teacher makes up a required reading list, he is making a judgment about what is good for his students.
This is not a neutral action. It is giving official sanction to a value judgment. That parents can have their kids "opt out" of the list is not an adequate response to complaints about its content, no more than an opt-out option for non-believing students makes mandatory school prayer acceptable.
Pinney was doing what an elected member of an Illinois school board is obliged by law to do: set education policy. She is not preventing anyone from raising his children "the way I want to," as one overwrought critic said.
Yes, she had a different view about what is suitable for required reading than other board members, her critics and perhaps me. That is a proper matter for debate. But her right to challenge required reading lists cannot and must not be denied.
For those telling her to shut up and go away, a compulsory remedial logic course would be in order.
----------
E-mail: dennis@dennisbyrne.net
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Chicago John Stroger's family and friends are doing the Cook County Board president no favors by keeping his true medical condition a secret from the public.
If Stroger, 77, is healthy, as they say he is, then one hopes that he would order his doctors to make the kind of medical disclosures one expects from important public officials, including the president of the United States, who are "suspected" of being incapacitated.
I say suspected because months after his serious stroke on March 14, Cook County voters, to whom Stroger is accountable, still don't know if he is capable of running a $3 billion enterprise.
Yet last week when Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica (R-Riverside), Stroger's Republican opponent for the board presidency, reasonably asked for a doctor's accounting, some county commissioners turned on him with ridicule and anger.
It's disrespectful, they said. John Daley, chairman of the county's Finance Committee, declared it to be a "damn disgrace."
No, here's the disgrace: that tin-pot politicians on their high horses think that we are not entitled to know. That they are such vassals that, even though they're legally responsible for running the government, they're perfectly willing to be kept in Kremlin-like ignorance.
Those who demand to know Stroger's true condition are not the ones who are stomping on his dignity. It's Stroger's gatekeepers who are turning this process into an inexcusable joke.
This is such a high-stakes game that the insiders (the Stroger family?) dared to tell Rev. Jesse Jackson to take a hike when he asked to visit the president. Jackson, who has mediated international disputes, can't even get through the door on this one.
I hope that Stroger returns in good health to seek re-election. But if he does return, his health and the secrecy that surrounded his rehabilitation will be a suitable topic for debate, in addition to his record as president.
Read on
Leslie Pinney, a member of the Arlington Heights-based Township High School District 214 board, didn't deserve the tarring she got when she tried to exercise board control over what students are required to read.
I emphasize "required" because she wasn't trying to tell students what they "can" or "cannot" read, as at least one student put it. She wasn't trying to "ban" books from the classroom or the library. She wasn't trying to "burn" books or conduct Hitlerian censorship, as others hysterically would have it.
She is no guiltier of trying to "ban" books than any schoolteacher who makes up a class reading list and leaves certain books off, for whatever reasons.
Get it straight: When a teacher makes up a required reading list, he is making a judgment about what is good for his students.
This is not a neutral action. It is giving official sanction to a value judgment. That parents can have their kids "opt out" of the list is not an adequate response to complaints about its content, no more than an opt-out option for non-believing students makes mandatory school prayer acceptable.
Pinney was doing what an elected member of an Illinois school board is obliged by law to do: set education policy. She is not preventing anyone from raising his children "the way I want to," as one overwrought critic said.
Yes, she had a different view about what is suitable for required reading than other board members, her critics and perhaps me. That is a proper matter for debate. But her right to challenge required reading lists cannot and must not be denied.
For those telling her to shut up and go away, a compulsory remedial logic course would be in order.
----------
E-mail: dennis@dennisbyrne.net
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Will Supreme Court take the side of parents on school choice?
Here's a lesson in how bad public policy spreads, until it becomes the law of the land.
The bad policy being: A plan that was designed to offer parents more “choice” in educating their children, actually turned into a state-concocted straightjacket requiring that some kids be bused across town, because they were the wrong race.
Continue reading at the Heartland Institute's blog, "From the Heartland." This is the first of what will be my regular contributions to the blog.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Pro-Gay Groups: Offer Your Own Amendment
By Dennis Byrne
Here's a suggestion: If pro-gay groups don't like the Marriage Protection Amendment--declaring that marriage in America shall consist solely of a union of a man and a woman--they should offer one of their own that will settle the issue once and for all.
The amendment would be as simple as the long-debated and failed Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, with the addition of one word and a small change to another:
"Equality of Rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sexual orientation."
Then, let's see where the chips fall.
Continue at realclearpolitics.com
Here's a suggestion: If pro-gay groups don't like the Marriage Protection Amendment--declaring that marriage in America shall consist solely of a union of a man and a woman--they should offer one of their own that will settle the issue once and for all.
The amendment would be as simple as the long-debated and failed Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, with the addition of one word and a small change to another:
"Equality of Rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sexual orientation."
Then, let's see where the chips fall.
Continue at realclearpolitics.com
What will governor try to sell next?
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
What Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is trying to do to the state and its taxpayers used to be called "living out of the attic."
That's selling your assets in order to pay your everyday expenses, such as eating. Because you irresponsibly have been living beyond your paycheck, you must sell your car, furniture and first-born. Soon, your attic will be empty, and then how will you eat? Having sold off your house, where will you eat?
It's a recipe for disaster, as it is for the State of Illinois.
In Blagojevich's cynical attempt to (in the following order) get himself re-elected, cover up his gigantic fiscal mess and live the liberal dream of a cradle-to-grave caretaker state, the governor wants to sell our assets, most recently the lottery and tollway.
It's not the first time he's tried this scam. Three years ago, the Democratic governor was ready to put up the James R. Thompson Center in Chicago's Loop. The state office building is still in the hands of taxpayers, but no telling what he'll try next: Navy Pier, McCormick Place, U.S. Cellular Field, the state Capitol, state parks, the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Cicero, the governor's office?
Not that selling off some of the state's stuff is necessarily a bad idea. But when it's the only alternative left to balance the budget, then it is bad. It's a sure sign that the budget is nothing but a pile of rot. It is an act of desperation.
We're at this point because of Blagojevich's prior flimflams, such as raiding the state's pension fund. I suppose he could try to squeeze more money out of state retirees, but that would be too politically expensive.
Even the usual political allies are concerned. John Adler, of the Service Employees International Union, said selling the tollway could be perceived as the equivalent of Native Americans selling Manhattan Island for $24 in beads and trinkets.
Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, a Chicago Democrat, sent out a letter to fellow lawmakers raising serious questions about the lottery: "Let's slow down and take a look at what assets should be held perpetually in trust for the taxpayers. Is this the best way to fund education? How much would it generate and which schools would benefit? Will it lead to further state-sponsored gambling?"
Funny, those are the same kinds of questions that Republicans, including Blagojevich's GOP opponent, state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka, are asking. They are not getting answers.
Republican state Sens. Peter Roskam, a west suburban congressional candidate, and Kirk Dillard want to know a potential sale's effect on suburban drivers. In case the governor hasn't noticed, the tollway serves the suburbs. Will their (increased) tolls be siphoned off, in effect, to benefit other areas of the state? Apparently, that's not a question that interests Blagojevich, as the Democrats (who run the tollway) failed to schedule any hearings on the proposal in DuPage or suburban Cook County, the tollway's two largest users.
The lottery, the governor claims, could go for $10 billion. But he refused to let anyone examine the study. It would be like sharing a sports playbook with an opposing team, his office said, meaning that companies interested in the lottery could use the information to bid lower.
Arrogant nonsense. Forget about the public's right to know. Any company that would spend $10 billion to buy a lottery will rely on its own study, not someone else's, to decide how much to bid.
Arrogant nonsense is all we've been getting from Blagojevich. Every week seems to bring more reason to regard Blagojevich as a dangerous windbag who will do anything to get re-elected. Most recently was the disclosure that the governor's aides, early in his administration, reviewed and approved hundreds of employment decisions, often by name--jobs that were supposed to go through the non-political civil service process. Or using the lottery idea to buy off state Sen. James Meeks, a Chicago independent who threatened to run against the governor.
All this from the guy who promised a new day of reform. One who has the feds sniffing around to find out if he has handed out jobs to campaign donors and political allies.
Sound familiar?
----------
E-mail dennis@dennisbyrne.net
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
What Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is trying to do to the state and its taxpayers used to be called "living out of the attic."
That's selling your assets in order to pay your everyday expenses, such as eating. Because you irresponsibly have been living beyond your paycheck, you must sell your car, furniture and first-born. Soon, your attic will be empty, and then how will you eat? Having sold off your house, where will you eat?
It's a recipe for disaster, as it is for the State of Illinois.
In Blagojevich's cynical attempt to (in the following order) get himself re-elected, cover up his gigantic fiscal mess and live the liberal dream of a cradle-to-grave caretaker state, the governor wants to sell our assets, most recently the lottery and tollway.
It's not the first time he's tried this scam. Three years ago, the Democratic governor was ready to put up the James R. Thompson Center in Chicago's Loop. The state office building is still in the hands of taxpayers, but no telling what he'll try next: Navy Pier, McCormick Place, U.S. Cellular Field, the state Capitol, state parks, the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Cicero, the governor's office?
Not that selling off some of the state's stuff is necessarily a bad idea. But when it's the only alternative left to balance the budget, then it is bad. It's a sure sign that the budget is nothing but a pile of rot. It is an act of desperation.
We're at this point because of Blagojevich's prior flimflams, such as raiding the state's pension fund. I suppose he could try to squeeze more money out of state retirees, but that would be too politically expensive.
Even the usual political allies are concerned. John Adler, of the Service Employees International Union, said selling the tollway could be perceived as the equivalent of Native Americans selling Manhattan Island for $24 in beads and trinkets.
Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, a Chicago Democrat, sent out a letter to fellow lawmakers raising serious questions about the lottery: "Let's slow down and take a look at what assets should be held perpetually in trust for the taxpayers. Is this the best way to fund education? How much would it generate and which schools would benefit? Will it lead to further state-sponsored gambling?"
Funny, those are the same kinds of questions that Republicans, including Blagojevich's GOP opponent, state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka, are asking. They are not getting answers.
Republican state Sens. Peter Roskam, a west suburban congressional candidate, and Kirk Dillard want to know a potential sale's effect on suburban drivers. In case the governor hasn't noticed, the tollway serves the suburbs. Will their (increased) tolls be siphoned off, in effect, to benefit other areas of the state? Apparently, that's not a question that interests Blagojevich, as the Democrats (who run the tollway) failed to schedule any hearings on the proposal in DuPage or suburban Cook County, the tollway's two largest users.
The lottery, the governor claims, could go for $10 billion. But he refused to let anyone examine the study. It would be like sharing a sports playbook with an opposing team, his office said, meaning that companies interested in the lottery could use the information to bid lower.
Arrogant nonsense. Forget about the public's right to know. Any company that would spend $10 billion to buy a lottery will rely on its own study, not someone else's, to decide how much to bid.
Arrogant nonsense is all we've been getting from Blagojevich. Every week seems to bring more reason to regard Blagojevich as a dangerous windbag who will do anything to get re-elected. Most recently was the disclosure that the governor's aides, early in his administration, reviewed and approved hundreds of employment decisions, often by name--jobs that were supposed to go through the non-political civil service process. Or using the lottery idea to buy off state Sen. James Meeks, a Chicago independent who threatened to run against the governor.
All this from the guy who promised a new day of reform. One who has the feds sniffing around to find out if he has handed out jobs to campaign donors and political allies.
Sound familiar?
----------
E-mail dennis@dennisbyrne.net
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
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