Bring Out the Fat Lady

Illinois is known as maybe one of the more liberal states.  We certainly have a huge world class city and prestigious universities.  But Illinois is also one of the leading farm producing states, has a huge rural population and has a southern region that is 90% farther south than the whole of Kentucky; and used to be solidly Republican until about 1964.  As you might have guessed, Illinois was more Republican when the GOP was the more liberal party.  That means even our Republican voters are slightly more liberal than what you would consider to be mainstream Republicans.  Suffice to say it's not all that surprising that a former Governor from the most liberal state in the Union, who is a very successful Wall St. investor that can outspend his nearest opponent 7:1 and who enacted what would we become the model for President Obama's (also from Illinois) health care reform won the state's primary rather handily.

If I remember correctly, Santorum's next big stand is Louisiana or something like that.  But it really doesn't matter.  Romney's solid win in the fifth biggest state, his unlimited supply of money and his huge lead in delegates practically seals the deal.  This is a one man show from here to maybe June.  Or maybe the convention in August.  But that's only because Santorum and Gingrich can't bear not seeing themselves on teevee.

Blago Gets 14 Years

So long Milorod.  Maybe you and George Ryan can share a cell.

American Accents

It's a common misconception that since I'm from Illinois I must be from Chicago, or close enough.  Actually I'm about 400 miles south of Chicago.  I'm closer to Memphis, Nashville and Little Rock than to Chicago.  Illinois is this weird state sitting smack dab in the middle of the country, stretching from as far north as Lake Michigan all the way down to Kentucky and the Mississippi Delta.  Its southern section is farther south than 90% of Kentucky.  In the the town I grew up in we had to drive northeast to get to Kentucky.  It's just one of those odd geographic anomalies many people never realize.

People from Southern Illinois never really consider themselves from Illinois.  We always make a distinction so as not to be part of the north.  It's a fun exclusion kind of thing, in a competitive way of course.  About the only times we'll say we're from Illinois and not Southern Illinois is when we're talking about Lincoln or Michael Jordan.  Honestly, that's really about it.  The rest of the time we want nothing to do with the state.

Why I'm mentioning this is because I came across an interesting project that maps American dialects.  It's the first time I've seen something that actually shows just how culturally diverse the nation is.  The map also gives Illinois the distinction of having 4 national dialects, Inland North, Midland, Inland South and Lowland South.  I live right on the line of what appears to be Inland and Lowland South dialects.  Notice, too, the line runs east to west, dividing Southern Illinois even further.  That means both southern dialects are found in one small section of a very much northern state.

Poll: In Illinois Tea Baggers Keep Going Limp

A recent statewide poll conducted by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute found 42.2% of the public disapproved or strongly disapproved of the fringe Republican group.  That number is up almost 8 points from the same time last year.  Twenty-eight percent said they had no opinion.

The poll also found that almost 80% of the Illinois public understands compromise is a necessary function of government. Astonishingly, 71.5% of tea bagger supporters said they prefer candidates that are willing to compromise.  Even though that number is down almost 10% from the whole, it's still wildly high for a group of people who believe people who don't agree with them are enemies.

Other things that are more popular in Illinois than tea baggers:

• The war in Iraq
• George W. Bush
• Legalizing drugs
• Oprah
• Social Security
• Medicare
• Public Option

Game Changer

Democrat Jerry Costello of the IL-12 has decided not to run for reelection.  He's my home rep.  This is a total game changer.  This was a very safe Democratic seat.

Probably the biggest Republican name I'm seeing thrown around to run in what will be a new district and an empty seat is Jason Plummer.  He was the GOP's 2010 Lt. Gov. nominee in Illinois.

Let's Just Keep Making People Criminals

Honestly, why don't we just ban people from riding in cars. Then we won't have to worry about silly seat belt laws.

Blago Guilty 17 Times

Image via Wikipedia

Former Illinois Governor, Rod Blagojevich (D-IL), will become the fourth Illinois governor to see the inside of a prison cell.  In my lifetime there have been 6 Governors of Illinois.  3 have been sent to prison.

I think my favorite synopsis of the Blago trials is this article in the Tribune where jurors describe the former governor as likable but guilty.  He is charismatic, I will agree to that.

Southern Illinois Flooding

Image via Wikipedia

Many readers might not know where I live in Southern Illinois is experiencing the worst flooding since 1937. Countless roads and towns are almost entirely under water. Harrisburg has even closed its flood gate, which has never happened before that I know of.  Being that the southern region is part of the Mississippi Delta-- which I'm sure most people don't realize just how far south Illinois stretches-- flooding is always an issue.  Like Tennessee's epic floods last year, deep south Illinois is just barely making the news.

Today, however, CNN did mention the Army Corp decided to blow the levee at Cairo.  This is to help alleviate the flooding which will soon amass the town but will result in flooding hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland in Missouri.

What we have, and this gets overlooked so much, are the two largest rivers in North America coming together right at the southern tip of Illinois, in Cairo.  When both the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers flood, that spells doom for Egypt (nee: Southern Illinois).  Though right now the rain has stopped the next few days will be critical for the region.  Luckily my home is on a hill and my town is 30 miles northeast of Cairo.  The numerous contributories, creeks and other small rivers, are backed up because of The Ohio and are flooding throughout, however.  There's just no place for the water to go.  Not to give a boring geography lesson, but things here are edgy.

Here are some pics:

confluence of Mississippi and Ohio taken before 10 extra inches of rain fell

All pictures are courtesy of the Chicago Tribune

Quinn Abolishes Death Penalty in Illinois

Illinois Governor Patt Quinn (D-IL) signed legislation this morning abolishing the death penalty. He also commuted the death sentence of 15 inmates to life in prison.

"For me, this was a difficult decision, quite literally the choice between life and death," Quinn wrote in his signing statement. "This was not a decision to be made lightly, or a decision that I came to without deep personal reflection."

"Since our experience has shown that there is no way to design a perfect death penalty system, free from the numerous flaws that can lead to wrongful convictions or discriminatory treatment, I have concluded that the proper course of action is to abolish it," Quinn wrote. "With our broken system, we cannot ensure justice is achieved in every case."

More than a decade ago, prisoners on Illinois' death row were being exonerated for their crimes mostly by DNA evidence.  In all, 13 men on death row were wrongly convicted.  In other words, they were sentenced to die by the State and were not guilty of the crimes charged.  That's a huge number when we're talking about the State having the power to kill.

However, even with the inexplicable errors, false convictions, rampant corruption and probably innocent people being executed, I still think the death penalty is necessary in some instances.  The death penalty is not a deterrent. But it is punishment.  And some crimes are so abhorrent there is no other alternative.  My opinion only.  I was really hoping Quinn wouldn't sign this bill.

The Great Wisconsin Escape Doesn't Add Up

Where I'm from in Illinois we tell Kentucky jokes. My favorite being why did they build the bridge at Shawneetown?  So Kentuckians can swim over in the shade, the punchline goes. When we see slow moving cars on the roads we immediately assume they somehow escaped from Kentucky and are now lost in Southern Illinois. That's just how things are in deep south Illinois.  I assume in the northern part of the state the casual joke telling falls on Wisconsin, at least it appears that way judging by the latest media war between the Dairy State and the Land of Lincoln.

The latest swarm of competition stems from the Illinois General Assembly voting to increase tax rates.  The Assembly approved and Governor Quinn signed legislation that raises the personal income tax from 3% to 5%.  That's a two-cent on the dollar raise. The legislation also raised the corporate income tax rate from 4.8% to 7%.

The media is portraying the increases as a 66% increase in personal income taxes and a 46% increase in corporate taxes.  Be that as it may, the new Republican governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, saw this as a way to attract Illinois citizens and Illinois business to his neighboring state.  Gov. Walker released a massive media blitz onto the Chicago media market yesterday inviting people and businesses to "Escape to Wisconsin," where he claims taxes are lower.

One tiny mistake with all that.  Wisconsin has higher taxes, even after Illinois' massive increases voted in this week.

Refugees fleeing to the cheese factories of Wisconsin will be rudely slapped with a personal income tax of 6.15%, a full 1.15 points higher (or 23% higher to use media math) than Illinois'.  Those making over $20k, which I hope is a vast majority of them, will see a personal tax rate between 6.5- 7.75%!  If we use the media's formula again to calculate the increase that's-- in the very least-- a personal tax rate 30% higher than Illinois.

Even the corporate tax will still be lower in Illinois, 7% versus 7.9% in Wisconsin.

In no uncertain terms would anyone move to Wisconsin for lower taxes.  It's not possible.  Only in a make-believe fantasy world is 6.5 a lower tax rate than 5.

What the Republican governor of Wisconsin is wanting to do is use the media's 66% increase label to scare people into thinking their taxes are going to be 66 times higher than what they are now.  If we apply that same misleading math to the Wisconsin escape, Illinois citizens that move up there will see a personal income tax increase of over 100%.  Why can't the media report that?  And why can't normal, everyday people ask a couple simple questions instead of depending on flashy and inaccurate headlines?

Illinois General Assembly Votes to Raise Taxes

Illinois Senate votes to increase individual income tax rate and business tax rate bringing in much needed state revenue.  The increase is expected to generate about $5 billion in new revenue.  Neither the Democratically-controlled senate nor house had any votes to spare on the measure.

BO Picks Daley

President Obama has chosen Bill Daley, son of infamous Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley, as his next Chief of Staff.

Get ready for the Chicago Machine conspiracy theories to pick back up again.

*Update:

I know a lot of people, especially on the left, well, and the right since they always do, will bash the president's choice of Bill Daley to head his office and that's their stance to take.  I for one could care less who his chief of staff is if it's not going to be me. Understanding what the president is doing with this requires a step out from academia and political commentary and a step into politics.  Daley is a man the financial institutions trust.  And right now job creation is numero uno.  It's not that hard to figure out what's going on here.  It's about building confidence and trust.  But most of all it's about jobs.  Yes this is politics as usual.  Hate the game just don't hate the player.  Say hello to President Palin if you do.

With all that rant said and done now, even the tree hugging hippy liberals at HuffPost know what's going on here and wouldn't mind 6 more years.

With his low-key demeanor, sense of personal decorum, and yen for privacy and upright behavior in personal life, the 62-year-old Daley has accumulated a lifetime of allies who now will help and respond to him in his new White House job. In Chicago terms, the president has moved from being a South Side activist to the Man in the Loop. The president hopes that the move will get him what he really wants: another term.

That just about sums this whole thing up perfectly.

Illinois, the Land of Gay Republicans

This just dawned on me too. Illinois not only has a gay Republican U.S. senator but our next in line for the Treasurer's office is gay too and Republican. Interesting.

Mark Kirk Cut Deal to Repeal DADT

Mark Kirk is to the best of my knowledge the only gay member of the U.S. Senate. Everyone in Illinois has known he is gay for a long time. Kirk is also a member of the U.S. military. So why in the world he would have to cut a deal in order to vote in favor of something that would make his lifestyle a little freer is troubling.

Illinois General Assembly Approves Civil Unions

The good thing about civil union laws is they allow you to legally be with the person you want to be with and not the person someone else wants you to be with. The bad news is it's still not full marriage equality. It is a step in the right direction, however.

When Gov. Pat Quinn signs a law allowing same sex couples to enter into civil unions granting them very basic legal protections heterosexual couples enjoy, Illinois will be the 6th State in the Union allowing such. It's a good day for equal rights here in Illinois.

The credit largely belongs to Gov. Pat Quinn because without his election last month none of this would have been possible.  Credit should also be extended to those lawmakers that kept their promise and voted in favor of advancing the State of Illinois into the 21st century.

*Update:

It's also worth mentioning that today's sole senate Republican vote came from Dan Rutherford, a gay man.  Sen. Rutherford was elected to statewide office as the next State Treasurer in November.  Congrats to Sen. Rutherford on his victory and his courage to do the right thing today.  I've spent some time with Sen. Rutherford drinking at Nora Bandy's and at some social gatherings at his home, which is beautiful by the way.  He should be given credit for his "yea" vote today.

Southern Illinoisan Wants to End Popular Vote in Illinois

Image via Wikipedia

Stuff like this is blatantly retarded. I'm not even going to reprint the words on this page because they are so fanatically out of the mainstream and written with such a partisan tone that I don't want to waste the time and effort.

Essentially, this delusional newspaper, which just so happens to be the major newspaper in Southern Illinois, wants to do away with the popular vote in Illinois and institute some sort of electoral college. The rag paper is proposing this to purportedly curb the City of Chicago's influence in Illinois politics.

There's a reason why people in the rest of the state think those of us down in Southern Illinois are not very smart.  This editorial only adds to that stereotype.

Now, just so we all know, there's also a reason why this paper is called by locals the Southern Illusion.  This is a whole new level of stupid, however.

The only reason why The Southern's editorial board is proposing such a radical change to election laws is because the guy they voted for lost.  That's it.  If Bill Brady had won, the guy Gary Metro has been gushing about for months, then they would have been fine with the outcome and not proposed changing laws.  But since they lost and the evil Democrats are still in charge we must "break" them by legislating away the popular vote.

I wonder if the geniuses at The Southern realized that if we used an electoral system based on population, then Chicago would still have more votes.  And since Cook County is 40% of the entire vote it would still dominate elections and politics. Nearly half of the entire population of Illinois lives in one county.  The only way to break that up is to use a weighted system that grants smaller populations greater electoral votes, or to start counting livestock as three-fifths a person.

In all honesty, if Gary Metro wanted Bill Brady to win the best thing he could have done was not endorse him.

Quinn Wins

AP calls it for Democrat Pat Quinn. Chalk one up for the good guys.

*Update:

CNN follows suit.

Quinn's Lead Grows

Maybe the only race I cared the least bit about, the Illinois governor's race, is looking all but over. I just got a text from a Quinn campaign manager saying with 100% of precincts reporting Quinn's lead is now 19,561.  Thank you Illinois.

Republican Tea Bagger in Illinois Helps Shed That Bothersome Racist Label

Tea baggers are having a hard time shedding their racist label. Surely this will help:

The Republican candidate for state Senate in the 52nd District said Wednesday night that black men “find it more lucrative to be able to do drugs or other avenues rather than do education.”

[…]

After the forum had ended, Reynolds repeated his comments.

“Look at the number of black men who opt out of getting a job and opt out of higher education. They don’t even make it out of high school because the lucrative drug trade is so rampant that it’s just easy for them to fall into that. What are the avenues for the black man to get out of the ghetto? He becomes a star athlete or he does drugs. I mean very few men of the black race get out of that ghetto through education.

“The women do. The women do because, number one, they’re forced to because they don’t have anybody to take care of them. They do a good job. A lot of the women are very good about getting out and getting an education. The men just have a more … you know, the lure of high money because it’s high money in drugs without having to pay the price of going to school.”

Bill Brady's Fuzzy Math Gets Fuzzier

Bill Brady (R-IL)

Republican math is like a treasure trove of wonderful things you've only heard of in fairy tales but are promised to you by politicians to make your life better. Bill Brady's formula for "reining" in Illinois' massive $13 billion deficit is no different.

First Brady tells voters that he wants to cut 10% across the board. With a $53 billion state budget that would equal about $5.3 billion in cuts. Alrighty then. Assuming he'll do what he says that takes the deficit down to $7.7 billion, right? Well not so fast. Brady admitted just a few weeks ago that his plan to slash 10% across the board and cut taxes would actually increase the deficit by at least a billion dollars the first year. How is that you might ask? Well if you cut $5 billion from the state budget it will lead to massive layoffs of state employees. Such layoffs lead to fewer people paying state income taxes, which in turn leads to smaller revenues for the state increasing the deficit by at least a billion dollars-- maybe more.  And if  you cut taxes on top of that you get, yet again, even smaller revenue.  Not rocket science.

So we have Brady cutting taxes, cutting $5 billion from the budget and still increasing the deficit.  Good work.  But now Brady realizes that you just can't slash 10% from the top of the budget.  Some items can't be cut, like items involving federal funding or debt services.  Brady tells Crain's editorial board that only $45 billion can be subject to his 10% across the board cuts, leaving the state with an $8.5 billion deficit before his self-admitted one billion dollar increase takes effect because of his policies. Adding in his deficit increase, the deficit is at least $9.5 billion.  Great job.

Unfortunately Bill Brady's Bush-style accounting doesn't end there.  State budget experts say Brady's $45 billion number is way off.  After you figure in all the untouchable items that can't legally be cut by 10% the state budget stands at about $30 billion.  Ten percent cut from that would equal $3 billion.  Add back the one billion Brady says his policies will add to the deficit and you get $2 billion.  So we go from a $13 billion deficit to an $11 billion deficit and huge amounts of layoffs statewide.  Brilliant!

The only other way to come close to balancing the budget, which Brady claims he can do, is to cut some programs and agencies by 20% instead of 10%.  And Brady says that may have to happen.  In reality even 20% cuts won't balance the budget unless there is a new revenue stream (i.e., tax increase) and a huge one to make up for the loss that will result in thousands of people being laid off because of the 20% cuts.

He has no clue really.  We are only supposed to take him at his word that he will cut taxes, shrink the deficit and cut spending all the while making Illinois more prosperous and business friendly.  And all this from a millionaire that paid no federal income taxes last year.