As one of the primary promoters of a “Yes” vote on Novmeber’s Constitutional Convention ballot question, I’ve been posting to numerous articles that are appearing in Illinois Newspapers. I will occasionally change the date on this post, it may pop up to the top of the site once in a while. Each time it pops up, it will have new comment or letter-to-the editor idea in the body of the post.

These comments would make good letters to the editor as well. Given that I lack the time to write letters to the editor for every newspaper, I thought I would enroll my readers and listeners in the process. Feel free to adapt any letter or commentary below to the never-ending stories Illinois Political Class Corruption and Incompetence. Make any language you like your own.

I also STRONGLY recommend that you use your name, as anonymity reduces credibility.

The first comment below was added to an Aaron Chambers’ “In Chamber’s Blog” post featuring Illinois’ flaccid Business Community and our two even more flaccid Minority Leaders…

Read the rest of this entry »

Russ Stewart writes an excellent article, highlighted and debated on Capitol Fax today. It is cheerily titled “REPUBLICANS ARE ON BRINK OF EXTINCTION”

That may be a tad hyperbolic, but the analysis is pretty convincing. The Capitol Fax post covers Gingrich’s recent article as well.

I wish I had the time to write an essay on these articles, as they raise important points, the most important one of which is that if Republican (nationally) think they can win the Presidency with a “We aren’t Pelosi or Obama” campaign, they are likely going to be toast.

That strategy didnt work for the idiots who tried it against Blagojevich, and only the supremely stupid think it will work here in Illinois in 2010. The articles on Rich Miller’s post are worth reading, as are the comments by his commentariate.

Gingrich is making the point that the Party needs to repudiate its fat, stupid past of the last 6 years, and run on a robust set of ideas. The last time they did that was 1994. Will that work again? Maybe, but why should people trust the Republicans with that again?

Stewart’s article is more theoretical, as it goes through the various scenarios for each of the 3 Presidential candidates.
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I lack the time to write the essay I’d like to write on these excellent articles. It suffices to say that we are in for a great deal of turmoil, both nationally and in Illinois, over the next 2-6 years. My brief take on the whole debate is that the Republican Party has utterly failed to govern on the principles they putatively run on. Some, like Illinois Republicans, believe they can win by being “moderate.” That didn’t work. Others think they can win only if they start listening to Michael Savage, and run on retrograde returns to yesteryear. That might work in 200 districts, but not nationally.

The principles Republicans pay lip-service to will endure, even the the party - and the idiots leading it - do not. Maybe some one with a brain will run on enduring principles, and leave the Democrat and Republican baggage to the narrow-minded people who think in such shallow terms.

Productivity Shows Resilience

Who says people aren’t talking about Constitutional Changes in Illinois?

Study revives notion of ending townships

A new study by a Roosevelt University professor is once again raising the question of whether townships are a useful and necessary level of government.

“I try to be as objective as I can, but all the data seems to point in one direction,” said David Hamilton, chairman of Roosevelt’s Political Science and Public Administration Department.

Hamilton said his findings reinforce the old argument that townships lack the cost-effectiveness of other local governments, like municipalities and counties.

Well Duh! Get rid of one of the three in any case.

Hanover Township Clerk Brian McGuire has defended township government before over his 15 years of experience. He said you have to look at more than numbers.

Notice how people whose positions don’t warrant existence based “on the numbers” always tell you it’s “more than the numbers.” We should tell them that when it comes to tax increases. If it isn’t “about the numbers,” then take a pay cut!

No one who earns money from any government agency should be trusted on this issue. They have a built in conflict of interest. They work for the taxpayers. We can “outsource” their function or do with out it. It is our choice, not theirs.

The Daily Herald has a story about the Elgin Kid who took out a teacher’s eye. The comments are all about punishing the kid. What about the system that allowed this travesty.

Teen pleads guilty in Elgin teacher attack

The 16-year-old accused of stabbing an Elgin High School teacher Tuesday pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder in Cook County juvenile court.

Assistant State’s Attorney John Somerville wants Angel Facio of Elgin to serve out a juvenile sentence — with the possibility of 20 years in an adult prison if he violates the terms of that sentence.

Facio’s attorney, James Martin, was unwilling to accept the state’s offer. “We wanted to be able to argue for less time,” Martin said. “In that sense, it’s really a blind plea.”

I hope everybody stops to take notice of the process here.

First, we import unmanageable problem(s)

[NOTE: This is not a slam on legal immigrants or on immigration, but on a broken system of unenforceable laws combined with tacit agreement of both parties to look the other way.]

2nd) The US gov. mandates that we MUST take care of everybody.

3rd) There isn’t enough tax $$ in the nation to meet US/IL mandates.

4th) Schools refuse to enforce discipline or turn these obvious troubled cases over to people better suited to address the issue. Instead, they use your (misplaced) support for public education to load up with “administrators” to administrate imported problems - all while calling for more mandates.

5th) All the rules, mandates, taxes, and administrative bloat can’t prevent a teacher from being attacekd and losing her eye.

6th) More problems, more calls for bloat and the taxes to fund it. Rinse and repeat.
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There are very few solutions to this process, and a hard permanent cap on the growth of government is one of them. It’s either that, or taxes hiked as far as the eye can see.

Punishing this kid is better than letting him go, but you have to FIX the problem.

State Senator Chris Lauzen is hosting a Property tax forum. Let’s hope more of our elected leaders do the same, and lets hope they do more that talk “process.”

Property tax forum set to answer questions

Lauzen has partnered with the supervisors of assessments and treasurers from both counties to help answer questions on local residents’ property tax bills and to help explain where their tax dollars are distributed.

Information also will be provided on a number of new homestead exemptions that have recently passed the General Assembly.

A property tax forum is scheduled for 7 to 8:30 p.m. Monday at the Yorkville Public Library, 902 Game Farm Road, Yorkville.

No, but the lack of oversight and transparency make this possible.

Ex-Roslyn school officials collect pensions in prison

Frank Tassone earns $1.05 a day working as a porter at the Mid-State Correctional Facility in upstate Oneida. Cleaning toilets and shower stalls, he is far from his comfortable days as the superintendent of the Roslyn school district, where he enjoyed lavish meals on the taxpayers, gambling junkets and frequent conferences in such playgrounds as Las Vegas.

But Tassone, 61, needn’t worry about having enough spending money for the prison commissary. In spite of his conviction for stealing $2.2 million from the school district, which put him behind bars for 4 to 12 years, Tassone can count on his annual New York State pension of $173,495 arriving at regular intervals in his bank account. He gets that in monthly installments of $14,457.92.

And, New York State law being what it is, he’ll continue to get that public pension for the rest of his life.

“It is unconscionable that a guy like Frank Tassone can collect a six-figure income while he’s in jail for stealing from his employer,” said E.J. McMahon, a pension expert from the Empire Center for New York State Policy, a pro-business think tank in Albany.

No, Mr McMahon. What is unconscionable is that any school superintendent anywhere earns this type of money, much less a pension. School Superintendents are worse than useless. They earn money for being nothing more than a cog in a wheel of legalized money-laundering. They educate no one, they help no one, and they could all disappear tomorrow with their cadre of useless Assistant Superintendents without one American child becoming less educated.

Let’s hope prison is rough for Mister Tassone. The shorter is interval here, the cheaper for the taxpayer.

MCCAIN: JUDGING JUDGES

According to advanced excerpts of his speech on his judicial philosophy today, McCain will blast both Obama and Clinton for supporting judicial activism. “They are both lawyers themselves, and don’t seem to mind at all when fundamental questions of social policy are preemptively decided by judges instead of by the people and their elected representatives. Nor have they raised objections to the unfair treatment of judicial nominees. For both Senator Obama and Senator Clinton, it turned out that not even John Roberts was quite good enough for them… And just where did John Roberts fall short, by [Obama’s] measure? Well, a justice of the court, as Senator Obama explained it – and I quote – should share ‘one’s deepest values, one’s core concerns, one’s broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one’s empathy.’”

“These vague words attempt to justify judicial activism – come to think of it, they sound like an activist judge wrote them. And whatever they mean exactly, somehow Senator Obama’s standards proved too lofty a standard for a nominee who was brilliant, fair-minded, and learned in the law, a nominee of clear rectitude who had proved more than the equal of any lawyer on the Judiciary Committee, and who today is respected by all as the Chief Justice of the United States. Somehow, by Senator Obama’s standard, even Judge Roberts didn’t measure up. And neither did Justice Samuel Alito. Apparently, nobody quite fits the bill except for an elite group of activist judges, lawyers, and law professors who think they know wisdom when they see it – and they see it only in each other.”

Come to the debates, and McCain will slap either Hillary or Obama around easily. Americans across the political spectrum don’t want 9 “elite” justices deciding how to manage issues of conscience. No matter what you think of McCain, the judicial nominee issue alone shows that we need to make sure McCain wins.

Save the war in Iraq (another issue on which McCain is more correct than not) isn’t as if they differ on much else.

The reformation started when Iraq went to polls and voted. The WOT was won when the people came out of the booth with purple fingers.

In the library with a leading Islamic liberal
Egyptian Gamal Banna backs women’s right to lead prayers and thinks clerics should adapt to modern times.

A slight man in a brown suit, whose smooth face belies his 88 years, can slide one from shelves of thousands, brush its cover and tell you a story, whether it be about jihad, St. Francis of Assisi or the labor movement of the 1930s. He has written 120 books himself, many of them about Islam, which to him has too long listened to the restrictive voices of the past.

Gamal Banna is one of Islam’s leading liberal thinkers. For years he has accused conservative clerics of running a dictatorship that has kept the Koran from speaking to a world much changed since the 7th century revelations of the prophet Muhammad. Banna, whose long-dead brother led a fundamentalist movement that inspired many of his critics, relishes unnerving opponents with opinions that strike at convention.

He supports the right of women to lead Friday prayers: “How can we make an ignorant man an imam and not a learned lady?” He holds that unmarried couples’ kissing does not lead to sin: “An insignificant act the [conservatives] say is a step toward adultery.” And his next book deals with relations between men and women under Islam.

“Islam has to go through its own reformation, and this will take 50 years at least,” said Banna, who wears thick glasses and has dark, combed-back hair brightened by coils of white. “We are four centuries behind Europe on thoughts about politics and religion.

“I’m advocating radical change. We reject the clerics who rely on 1,000-year-old [teachings] which cannot live in this age.”

That “reformation” started when Iraq fell, and would never have started under the “Realist” view of managing “Dictatorships” and flailing after some false “stability.” Similarly, pulling out and leaving Iraq to fall back to chaos would set this process back.

I used to like Mayor Daley, but he’s outlived his usefulness as a Mayor. He’s gone from someone who cares about the city to someone who caters to big contractors, political contributors, and the corrupt corporate elite. He has more in common with “Country Club Republicans” and “Limosine Liberals” than the people he supposed represents. Lucky for him they act more like sheep than people, because Daley is shearing them.

Rich Miller has a great post exposing the Mayor for what he is - another big city hack failing his constituents (my words, not Rich Miller’s, BTW). Then again, if one understands who Mayor Daley’s constituents REALLY ARE, (Pritzkers, Allstates, Boeings), then he’s doing a bang up job.

As far as the Children’s Museum, I’ve never thought of it as much more than a day care center on steroids, where the rich donors get to pretend that all their smarmy liberalism is making for a better future. Kids would be better off playing Lazer Tag or running around outside.

The strong arm move to shove the Children’s Museum into Grant Park is an object lesson in just how mercantilist and corrupt the Illinois body politic has become. Why not just sell Grant Park to the rich elite along the Lake Front and be done with it?

I hope Daley loses this battle, and loses big. I hope the scrappy citizens groups win in court, and I hope we can start writing new chapters in Chicago politics. One with out Daleys, Strogers and Burkes. (or Thompsons, Edgars, and Cellinis)

For a good look at who the runs the Chicago Children’s Museum, check out this neat little map.