Daley's record needs airing out for voters
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
Quote of the day: "They thought I've lost my mind." --Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley
Having brought it up himself, does the mayor wish to make his mental health an issue if he decides to seek re-election? The debate should be vigorous.
Daley obviously doesn't think (nor do I) that he has lost his mind. He was only raising the issue last week as another part of his tiresome cat-and-mouse game of pretending he hasn't decided to seek re-election. He was explaining how his political advisers told him that he was bonkers if he tried to reform the abysmal Chicago public school system and the Chicago Housing Authority.
At least, that's what Daley said they told him. Attempts to reform the awful schools and projects were certain political losers. So, Daley would have us believe, it was an act of political valor of the first order, a leadership challenge that he had to accept, damn the political consequences, and so forth. Obviously, his "profile in courage" will be the centerpiece of his campaign.
Frankly, I think it all was a calculated act of political genius. Consider the political consequences if he had said those problems weren't his job. Technically, he might have been right, just as running the Chicago Park District and the CTA theoretically is not his job. But nobody falls for the charade that they're not. It would have been a political disaster if he had let the high-profile problems of the schools and public housing projects fester, costing Daley corporate, civic and plenty of other support. So give him credit for taking it on himself, instead of appointing a "blue ribbon" committee, as his father, Mayor Richard J., would have done.
But, has Daley actually solved the problems? When it came to actual school governance, his masterstroke was putting Paul Vallas in charge of the schools. Vallas re-energized the system, but then Daley dumped him because--why? Vallas was getting too big for his britches? All we know is that Daley now claims the glory as his.
Despite Daley's self-acclamation and the "evidence" of student test scores (the abomination of today's education system), I don't know that anyone can really say just how much better or worse the schools are under Daley. But here's one reliable test: How many suburban parents say, "Oh, gee, Chicago's schools are so great, I'm going to move back into the city because I want my kids to get a good education"? If Chicago parents had real choices, such as school vouchers, tens of thousands would abandon the city's public schools. Here's a second test: How many businesses are fighting each other to hire the products of the city's school system?
As for public housing problems? He made them disappear, literally. The miles of high-rise projects by consensus had become so cancerous, and the need to tear them down became so obvious, that to pretend that they could be made safe and livable would have been politically disastrous. Presto, away they went, leaving behind the lingering questions: Where did everyone go, and are the lives of the former residents any better?
So, despite what Daley would have everyone believe, he has not taken the schools and public housing out of play in the upcoming mayoral campaign. He has made them a legitimate campaign issue, and one that might not rebound to his benefit.
But these are only two issues that can challenge Daley. Population and jobs still flow to the suburbs, a larger social trend that can't be blamed on any one big-city mayor. At least not entirely. Here, you have to wonder just how many people want to have nothing to do with Chicago because they understand that the Daley administration begets corruption, and corruption begets higher taxes and higher taxes beget people and businesses getting fed up with it all and moving out? Just how much better could Chicago be without all the corruption?
The challenge is to find legitimate candidates who can credibly challenge Daley on these and other significant issues. Dorothy Brown, Cook County Circuit Court clerk, missed a chance to establish her own credibility when she announced her candidacy last week. Asked if she supported the controversial "big box" minimum wage ordinance, she bobbed and weaved. To be credible, you first must have a position. Not a good start.
© 2006, Chicago Tribune
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Monday, September 04, 2006
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
More Language Glop From the Left
By Dennis Byrne
Arellano, who has become the darling of the abolish-all-immigration-laws crowd, is holed up in a Chicago storefront church, claiming a non-existent sanctuary right against being deported for crossing the Mexican border, for the third time, illegally.
Of course, we’re no longer allowed to call her an alien because to do so hurts feelings. Even though the dictionary simply defines alien as a foreigner, especially someone who isn’t a naturalized citizen. I suppose we could call her an illegal foreigner, but foreigner, too, soon may be the next standard English word to be deposited in the trash by the political correctors.
Despite the precise meaning of illegal alien, we instead get language glop.
Continue Reading at Human Events
Spitting in reality’s eye, some journalists still are referring to Elvira Arellano and other illegal aliens as an “undocumented worker.”
Arellano, who has become the darling of the abolish-all-immigration-laws crowd, is holed up in a Chicago storefront church, claiming a non-existent sanctuary right against being deported for crossing the Mexican border, for the third time, illegally.
Of course, we’re no longer allowed to call her an alien because to do so hurts feelings. Even though the dictionary simply defines alien as a foreigner, especially someone who isn’t a naturalized citizen. I suppose we could call her an illegal foreigner, but foreigner, too, soon may be the next standard English word to be deposited in the trash by the political correctors.
Despite the precise meaning of illegal alien, we instead get language glop.
Continue Reading at Human Events
Monday, August 28, 2006
Plan B's Junk Science
By Dennis Byrne
Repeatedly we are told that "science" has concluded that the over-the-counter sale of emergency contraception pills is safe for 15-year-old and younger girls because it does not increase their risky sexual behavior.
This is bunk. This assertion is based on research that says no such thing. Not even close.
Yet, the public is remorselessly fed this line, especially after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration decided last week to allow pharmacies to sell Plan B tablets without prescriptions to women 18 and over. The FDA sensibly declined to allow their sale without a prescription to young adolescents because the manufacturer had not provided enough evidence that they would use the drug safely and effectively without supervision.
Will the drug lead to more risky sexual behavior, such as increased unprotected intercourse and sex with multiple partners? Will it allow older men to pressure 14-year-olds into sex--protected or unprotected--because this magical pill will "take care of everything"? Common sense alone suggestions these are among the risks.
But Plan B advocates, reproductive rights ideologues, manufacturers and marketers firmly deny the existence of any such risks, because "science" tells us so, as if that shuts the door on any further discussion. But, in fact, "science" tell us nothing; the "telling" is done by people who do science.
And the "scientific claims" about the impact of Plan B on the sexual behavior of younger teens are dubious at best or, worse, outright distortions--distortions that have been picked up and endlessly repeated by the media. Without examining the "science" of the claims.
So, let's do so.
Read more at RealClearPolitics.9/11 conspiracies are a crying shame
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
The fifth anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, is two weeks away, but the screeching from the conspiracy monkey house already is upon us.
The "9-11 truth squads" are planning a three-day gala in New York City to inform the world that Sept. 11 was a "catalyst" designed to set in motion a "global domination project" by overthrowing the American government, says NY911Truth.org. Which would be true, if you were talking about a plot by Islamic fascists. But they say it was by President Bush himself, "as a pretext for the current Middle East aggression."
The organizers of the conspiracy jamboree urge "all movements for transformational progress" to converge on Gotham thusly: "If we want to put an end to war, use our treasury for productive purposes domestically, restore our Constitution, have a law-abiding government, create cooperative rather than antagonistic relationships with the rest of the world, heal our environment and be the creators of our own destiny, understanding 9/11 is required," say these "truth" activists.
The blogosphere is buzzing with the things they want us to understand.
Start at 911research.wtc7.net and follow the links into paranoia hell.
Among other things, airliners didn't crash into the Pentagon (it was an American missile) or the World Trade Center, and even if they did, they didn't cause the towers to collapse--it was the result of "controlled demolition charges" placed by Bush agents in the buildings before they were struck. That the named hijackers were not the hijackers, if, that is, the planes actually were hijacked or even existed.
Most incredibly, this intricate plot was pulled off by the world's most stupid head of state, George W. Bush.
Such theories require extensive fabrications to back them up, such as the assertion that the towers collapsed at free-fall speed (false), and that one floor falling on top of another couldn't possibly "pancake" the buildings (actually it was scores of floors collapsing on each floor).
The conspiracy nimrods, of course, won't be there alone. Mainstream media nimrods also will attend in great numbers. TV anchors will solemnly speak of "disturbing new questions" about Sept. 11 and break to interviews with charla-tans, incompetents, nut cases and the gullible, all united as fools.
And they'll all be playing to the many Americans who take it seriously. More than a third suspect that federal officials either took part in or knowingly took no action to stop the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll. The poll also found that 16 percent of Americans believe the bit about how secretly planted explosives collapsed the twin towers.
Conspiracy documents are a hot read on college campuses and in Europe.
Loonies come in all shapes, from the conservative Paul Craig Roberts (Ronald Reagan's supply-side guy) to, well, so many on the left. That's because the conspiracy theory resonates with their psychotic hatred of Bush, whom they can easily believe would engineer a deadly attack on Americans.
Of course, by this theory, W. also engineered the attacks on the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the U.S. Embassies in Africa and the Navy warship, the USS Cole. All while he was a slobbering drunk.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair also is alleged to be a part of the plot against America, just as he, the U.S., Israel and Rupert Murdoch's media empire have now supposedly cooked up the plot to blow up American-bound airliners.
The self-described "9-11 truth community" will try to appear reasonable by calling for an "independent" investigation"--which means that the committees still sniffing out the conspirators in the JFK assassination will have to clear out of the hearing room for the next four decades.
No expert investigation, such as one by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, will be "independent" enough to suit them. Not that the professional engineering groups shouldn't be more forceful in rebuttal. I suppose they fear that speaking out would give the wackos credibility.
But it is silence that gives them credibility.
Failing a unified debunking by professionals, Popular Mechanics magazine took up the challenge. Popular Mechanics doesn't have the proper cache, so the theorists will ridicule or ignore its work, even though it's the most extensive rebuttal I've yet seen. Judge for yourself at popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html.
Unless you believe that the magazine, too, is in cahoots with Bush.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The fifth anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, is two weeks away, but the screeching from the conspiracy monkey house already is upon us.
The "9-11 truth squads" are planning a three-day gala in New York City to inform the world that Sept. 11 was a "catalyst" designed to set in motion a "global domination project" by overthrowing the American government, says NY911Truth.org. Which would be true, if you were talking about a plot by Islamic fascists. But they say it was by President Bush himself, "as a pretext for the current Middle East aggression."
The organizers of the conspiracy jamboree urge "all movements for transformational progress" to converge on Gotham thusly: "If we want to put an end to war, use our treasury for productive purposes domestically, restore our Constitution, have a law-abiding government, create cooperative rather than antagonistic relationships with the rest of the world, heal our environment and be the creators of our own destiny, understanding 9/11 is required," say these "truth" activists.
The blogosphere is buzzing with the things they want us to understand.
Start at 911research.wtc7.net and follow the links into paranoia hell.
Among other things, airliners didn't crash into the Pentagon (it was an American missile) or the World Trade Center, and even if they did, they didn't cause the towers to collapse--it was the result of "controlled demolition charges" placed by Bush agents in the buildings before they were struck. That the named hijackers were not the hijackers, if, that is, the planes actually were hijacked or even existed.
Most incredibly, this intricate plot was pulled off by the world's most stupid head of state, George W. Bush.
Such theories require extensive fabrications to back them up, such as the assertion that the towers collapsed at free-fall speed (false), and that one floor falling on top of another couldn't possibly "pancake" the buildings (actually it was scores of floors collapsing on each floor).
The conspiracy nimrods, of course, won't be there alone. Mainstream media nimrods also will attend in great numbers. TV anchors will solemnly speak of "disturbing new questions" about Sept. 11 and break to interviews with charla-tans, incompetents, nut cases and the gullible, all united as fools.
And they'll all be playing to the many Americans who take it seriously. More than a third suspect that federal officials either took part in or knowingly took no action to stop the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll. The poll also found that 16 percent of Americans believe the bit about how secretly planted explosives collapsed the twin towers.
Conspiracy documents are a hot read on college campuses and in Europe.
Loonies come in all shapes, from the conservative Paul Craig Roberts (Ronald Reagan's supply-side guy) to, well, so many on the left. That's because the conspiracy theory resonates with their psychotic hatred of Bush, whom they can easily believe would engineer a deadly attack on Americans.
Of course, by this theory, W. also engineered the attacks on the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the U.S. Embassies in Africa and the Navy warship, the USS Cole. All while he was a slobbering drunk.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair also is alleged to be a part of the plot against America, just as he, the U.S., Israel and Rupert Murdoch's media empire have now supposedly cooked up the plot to blow up American-bound airliners.
The self-described "9-11 truth community" will try to appear reasonable by calling for an "independent" investigation"--which means that the committees still sniffing out the conspirators in the JFK assassination will have to clear out of the hearing room for the next four decades.
No expert investigation, such as one by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, will be "independent" enough to suit them. Not that the professional engineering groups shouldn't be more forceful in rebuttal. I suppose they fear that speaking out would give the wackos credibility.
But it is silence that gives them credibility.
Failing a unified debunking by professionals, Popular Mechanics magazine took up the challenge. Popular Mechanics doesn't have the proper cache, so the theorists will ridicule or ignore its work, even though it's the most extensive rebuttal I've yet seen. Judge for yourself at popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html.
Unless you believe that the magazine, too, is in cahoots with Bush.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Immigration issue indeed one of morality
By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune
It has been a long time, but Slim Coleman finally has his mug back on television and in the papers.
It took Elvira Arellano--the picked-upon illegal immigrant who as of this writing is holed up in Coleman's tiny Humboldt Park church--to do it, but us scribblers have got to stand in admiration. The publicity-seeking Uptown "activist" Coleman managed not just to yank himself out of decades of local obscurity, but instantly land himself on national TV.
Wow.
I imagine (or hope) by the time this appears, the media will have gotten around to detailing Coleman's background, which may have been obscured by the fact he is now going by his given name, Walter. It was in 1985 that columnist Mike Royko pulled back the covers on Coleman, who was bounding around Uptown, City Hall and wherever he could attract a camera, posing as a hillbilly activist. He gave himself the name Slim to better appear to be one of the many Appalachian good old boys and their kin residing up yonder around Wilson and Broadway.
In fact, he was a son of well-to-do Texas parents and a Harvard University philosophy student, according to Royko. While in his Snuffy Smith mode, he made the news by such stunts as trying to attack former Chicago Ald. Eddie Vrdolyak in the City Council. Since then, few of us realized that he had been laboring for the salvation of souls in the local vineyards, until he was mentioned at the bottom of a story a couple of years ago as being among the "religious leaders" who "decried" U.S. "torture" of war detainees.
Slim continues in the same vein with the Arellano stunt, with the same results: a PR disaster. Yes, conventional wisdom says that claiming church sanctuary is masterful PR, putting immigration officials in the Hobson's choice of dragging a woman and her young son out of a church, or letting her flout the law. But already it has hardened feelings against illegal immigrants and created some doubts among their supporters. Clearly, it didn't prove the need for "legalization" of illegal immigrants, as provided in a Senate-passed bill. (For utopians who think the Arellano affair demonstrates the need for the Senate's "reforms," do you think that she and millions of others would, as the bill requires, show up to pay a $2,000 fine and back taxes, then wait five years to apply for citizenship, contingent on a criminal background check, steady employment and no criminal conduct--other than sneaking into America?)
But, come, let us not doubt Coleman's purity of purpose. Let's concede that Arellano, Coleman and their supporters truly believe their assertion that deporting her would be "immoral." She is defying an "immoral" law, just as civil rights pioneers asserted when they defied civil authorities to protest clearly immoral Jim Crow laws. Moral, they say, trumps legal. I agree.
But just how are restrictions on legal immigration immoral? Just saying it doesn't make it so. A few do make a stab at explaining it: For some, it is immoral to "deny opportunities" to lawbreakers. Others say "social justice" requires that the laws not be enforced. For some, simply being "mean-spirited" or "insensitive" is immoral.
Is it moral for a nation to create a ready supply of easily exploitable and underpaid peons? Is a cash-only system of tax evasion, shifting more of the tax burden onto taxpayers, moral?
Is it moral to regard human beings as primarily a unit of labor important to our nation's financial health? Is it moral to depress the wages of those who are here legally? Is human smuggling moral?
Yes, the moral imperative to care for everyone applies equally to Arellano. And if moral choices simply applied to individuals, Arellano would stay. But morality is more complex, involving such concepts as the "common good" and doing what's right for an entire community, even if that entire community is as big as a sovereign nation.
Thus, immigration officials, in seeking to expel Arellano, are acting not only legally, but also morally. Because without such moral actions, our country would be a mess.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
It has been a long time, but Slim Coleman finally has his mug back on television and in the papers.
It took Elvira Arellano--the picked-upon illegal immigrant who as of this writing is holed up in Coleman's tiny Humboldt Park church--to do it, but us scribblers have got to stand in admiration. The publicity-seeking Uptown "activist" Coleman managed not just to yank himself out of decades of local obscurity, but instantly land himself on national TV.
Wow.
I imagine (or hope) by the time this appears, the media will have gotten around to detailing Coleman's background, which may have been obscured by the fact he is now going by his given name, Walter. It was in 1985 that columnist Mike Royko pulled back the covers on Coleman, who was bounding around Uptown, City Hall and wherever he could attract a camera, posing as a hillbilly activist. He gave himself the name Slim to better appear to be one of the many Appalachian good old boys and their kin residing up yonder around Wilson and Broadway.
In fact, he was a son of well-to-do Texas parents and a Harvard University philosophy student, according to Royko. While in his Snuffy Smith mode, he made the news by such stunts as trying to attack former Chicago Ald. Eddie Vrdolyak in the City Council. Since then, few of us realized that he had been laboring for the salvation of souls in the local vineyards, until he was mentioned at the bottom of a story a couple of years ago as being among the "religious leaders" who "decried" U.S. "torture" of war detainees.
Slim continues in the same vein with the Arellano stunt, with the same results: a PR disaster. Yes, conventional wisdom says that claiming church sanctuary is masterful PR, putting immigration officials in the Hobson's choice of dragging a woman and her young son out of a church, or letting her flout the law. But already it has hardened feelings against illegal immigrants and created some doubts among their supporters. Clearly, it didn't prove the need for "legalization" of illegal immigrants, as provided in a Senate-passed bill. (For utopians who think the Arellano affair demonstrates the need for the Senate's "reforms," do you think that she and millions of others would, as the bill requires, show up to pay a $2,000 fine and back taxes, then wait five years to apply for citizenship, contingent on a criminal background check, steady employment and no criminal conduct--other than sneaking into America?)
But, come, let us not doubt Coleman's purity of purpose. Let's concede that Arellano, Coleman and their supporters truly believe their assertion that deporting her would be "immoral." She is defying an "immoral" law, just as civil rights pioneers asserted when they defied civil authorities to protest clearly immoral Jim Crow laws. Moral, they say, trumps legal. I agree.
But just how are restrictions on legal immigration immoral? Just saying it doesn't make it so. A few do make a stab at explaining it: For some, it is immoral to "deny opportunities" to lawbreakers. Others say "social justice" requires that the laws not be enforced. For some, simply being "mean-spirited" or "insensitive" is immoral.
Is it moral for a nation to create a ready supply of easily exploitable and underpaid peons? Is a cash-only system of tax evasion, shifting more of the tax burden onto taxpayers, moral?
Is it moral to regard human beings as primarily a unit of labor important to our nation's financial health? Is it moral to depress the wages of those who are here legally? Is human smuggling moral?
Yes, the moral imperative to care for everyone applies equally to Arellano. And if moral choices simply applied to individuals, Arellano would stay. But morality is more complex, involving such concepts as the "common good" and doing what's right for an entire community, even if that entire community is as big as a sovereign nation.
Thus, immigration officials, in seeking to expel Arellano, are acting not only legally, but also morally. Because without such moral actions, our country would be a mess.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
New Flying Rules Are Actually a Godsend
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?
Read more at Human Events
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?
Read more at Human Events
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
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