The View from Right Field

Who Are the Stupid People in Illinois?

Yet another Illinois public official has been indicted for corruption, and once again it is somebody whose parent was a public official, too.¹  It is amazing to me that these kids, who have seen so many people, including friends of their parents, indicted and convicted of corruption, wind up being accused of doing the same things themselves.  It’s like they haven’t learned anything.  But when I said to my wife, “How stupid can these people be?”, she said maybe they’re not the stupid ones.  Maybe the stupid ones are the people of Illinois, who keep electing people like this.
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¹ In this case, it is State Senator Emil Jones III, son of former Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, Jr.
UPDATE (9/26/22 10:20 pm): A version of this post was published in the "Voice of the People" in today's Chicago Tribune.  See here.

Nancy Pelosi’s Visit to Taiwan – and Joe Biden

So, was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan a good idea?  I don’t know,¹ though once the visit was leaked and China objected so vociferously, she had to go.  Still, the visit raises all kinds of questions.  Here is one I had: I find Joe Biden’s comments last month criticizing the trip and saying the Defense Department was worried about the trip, more than a little bizarre.  Speaker Pelosi and President Biden are both Democrats.  I am sure Speaker Pelosi knows how to reach President Biden when she wants to talk to him.  I am sure he picks up the phone when she calls.  Did this mean Secretary Pelosi planned her trip without talking to President Biden, or at least to his people, first?  That would truly be bizarre. 

What’s Wrong With Chicago?

A couple of weeks ago, we were on Michigan Avenue.  We went into a store to buy a baptismal present for our granddaughter, and we found a wonderful little necklace.  The clerk boxed it up and put it in a bag.  But then she put the store’s bag in another bag, a plain white bag.  The store has a trademark color for its boxes and bags.  If you see that color, you know where it’s from.  But the clerk understood, and we understood when she did it, that you don’t walk on Michigan Avenue with a bag that color. 

The next day, our son was standing on an El platform, a busy one, when somebody came up and just punched him in the face at 9:00 am for no reason at all.  Nobody came to help him, and when our son took the person’s picture, the person punched him again.  The police were able to apprehend the person, which was great.  But whether there will be any consequences for him, who knows.

Illinois in 2021 Reminds Us of the Suddenness of Change and the Brittleness of Autocracy

Here’s something I was going to write as an end-of-the-year post, but things got busy, so I’m writing it as a looking-back-at-2021 post:

At the end of last year, the media was full of lists of the biggest stories of 2021.  Most of them were pretty much the same: Covid, inflation, Democrats not being able to pass President Biden’s Build Back Better bill, Vladimir Putin massing troops on Ukraine’s border, etc.

Irresponsible Governance – Chicago and Washington

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how the Democrats in Congress were trying to pass a package of new social programs.  Obviously, they have been having a bit of a problem getting the bill passed.  Some Democrats only want to set up programs they can pay for.  A lot of others want to set up as many programs as possible, even if it is just for a year or two.  They are willing to spend all the money required to set up lots of new programs, even if the programs have to shut down after a couple of years because there’s no future money to continue them.  In other words, irresponsible governance.

But it’s not only Washington where you see this kind of irresponsible governance.  It’s happening in Chicago, too. For example, for a moment last week, I thought that Chicago had not only solved its huge pension liability¹ but also figured out a way to replace its hundreds of thousands of lead water pipes.² 

JB Pritzker, Redistricting, and the Illinois Way

In the 2018 campaign, then-candidate JB Pritzker said he supported an amendment to the Illinois constitution to have state legislative redistricting done by an independent commission.  If an amendment wasn’t adopted, he said the legislature should set up an independent commission, and he pledged he would veto any maps “drafted or created by legislators, political party leaders and/or their staffs or allies.”

Governor Pritzker first broke his pledge earlier this year when he approved redistricting maps passed by Springfield Democrats for state legislative districts.  Now, I am sure, he is set to break his promise again on the Congressional remap drawn up by Democratic “legislators, political party leaders and/or their staffs”.¹

Offloading Obligations Onto Future Generations – In Germany and the United States

A recent decision of the constitutional court in Germany has a lesson for the United States.  In Germany, the constitution works differently.  The constitution, actually, it’s called the Basic Law, and it dates back to 1949 and the founding of West Germany, allows for the federal constitutional court to get involved on issues and in ways that are different from what happens in the United States.

In late April, the constitutional court issued an important decision on Germany’s climate change law.  The Financial Times reported:

The Sad Sale of the Thompson Center

Monday was a sad, but all-too-predictable, day in Illinois: The state officially announced the Thompson Center in downtown Chicago is for sale.  The building was designed by Helmut Jahn, and it opened in 1985.  While the building had issues when it opened, they were resolved.  The building is a gem of post-modern design, and it could have been a destination in downtown Chicago for architecture buffs and regular people – if it had not been owned by the State of Illinois. 

Instead of a go-to place in the center of Chicago, the Thompson Center has, under the State of Illinois, become a bit of a dump.  But it didn’t have to happen.  It isn’t the fault of the building or the design. 

Communist. Fascist. Racist. What’s Next?

From what I read in the newspaper and hear on the radio, apparently I am a racist because I am not in favor of changing the name of Lake Shore Drive to Jean Baptiste Point DuSable Drive.¹  The fact that “Lake Shore Drive” is a classic Chicago street name, known pretty much around the world, right up there with “State Street, that great street,” and “Michigan Drive, the Magnificent Mile,” doesn’t matter.  Jean Baptiste Point DuSable was a Black Haitian and not wanting to name Lake Shore Drive after him is racist.²  It’s sort of like Humpty Dumpty:

“‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master – that's all.’”

House Values in Illinois

One of the problems with living in Illinois is that house prices values aren’t going up like they are in some other parts of the country.  But then, with so many people leaving Illinois (Illinois is one of the few states losing people each year), it’s logical.¹  With fewer people in Illinois, there are fewer people looking to buy houses; i.e., demand is lower.  With demand lower and supply staying the same (the houses aren’t leaving, just the people), it’s logical that prices aren’t going up as much as places where population is growing and people want to move.

One of the reasons people are leaving Illinois (and why others aren’t coming or returning) is our lousy state government.  As I have said elsewhere, Illinois has the worst credit rating of any state and has hundreds of billions of dollars of unfunded pension liability, not to mention billions of dollars of unpaid bills.  Why wouldn’t people want to leave – or not come?  Why not get away from that debt?  Why move to that debt?