Author: Jim Bowman

Jim Bowman covered religion 1968-78 for the Chicago Daily News, since then has written books, articles, etc., mostly on corporate history but also on religion (Company Man: My Jesuit Life, 1950-1968), and more recently on politics (Illinois Blues: How the Ruling Party Talks to Voters -- Lulu.com, Kindle). Longtime Oak Park, Illinois, resident, he lives now on Chicago's North Side, where four of his and Winnie's six children live close by.

Illinois Blues: Limping North Avenue, Not Losing the Merc

At the Oak Park Library, July 17, 2013 — from Illinois Blues: How the Ruling Party Talks to Voters, Chapter 3, “There Will Be No Cuts,” continued:

The man [who had complained about Illinois’ lowest-in-nation bond rating] threw in the towel, giving way to the next questioner, asking about a much-protested pawn shop on economically limping North Avenue and related matters.

Rep. Lilly jumped on this. With more pointing and waving, she declared that North Avenue issues were “what I call ‘on the docket.’” For action or consideration, she didn’t say, nor on whose docket.

Then from the floor came an enterprising suggestion, that even with Sen. Harmon’s proposed fair tax (“graduated”) there still wouldn’t be enough money. “So how about the proposed tax on stock trades?” (A “sales tax on speculators,” a columnist called it.)

Lilly laughed. “Actually, I saw that proposal, among so many that I didn’t read.”

Harmon said he had heard testimony for this tax, naming a local socialist who was an energetic proponent of a mandated “living wage” for village employees. But he gently poured cold water on the idea, Lilly next to him nodding vigorous agreement.

“There’s the fear that this legislation would push the Chicago Mercantile Exchange out of the state,” Harmon explained. It was a rare nod to the role of taxation in damaging the economy.

Illinois Blues is available in paperback, epub and Amazon Kindle formats.

Justice is not blind in Cook County

Its prosecutor talked this way:

In May, State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez asked to be recused from Van Dyke’s case and requested that [Judge] Gaughan assign a special prosecutor “to obtain justice for Laquan McDonald and to ensure continuity in the handling of this important and complicated case.”

As if justice = revenge.

This is standard, yes. Justice for somebody. But justice is or isn’t. You achieve it or you don’t. It’s not for somebody.

Makes you wonder when people talk that way, as if Laquan McDonald lies waiting for vindication. Or as I say, revenge.

Big bucks in store for Clinton Bundlers who want gummint money for green energy

What a concidence!

Investors in some of the nation’s most heavily subsidized green energy companies are among the top campaign fundraisers for Hillary Clinton, who has pledged to step up government support for wind, solar, and other renewable energy companies.

Clinton’s green energy investor bundlers have been deeply involved in prior efforts at the state and federal levels to secure taxpayer funds for such companies. A Clinton presidency would virtually guarantee additional subsidies and government incentives.

“I met yesterday in Chicago with a big group of clean renewable energy businesses and they’re just ready to go,” she said at an Iowa campaign stop in November. “But they need some help from the government.”

The people who object most strenuously to this are Bernie supporters, of course.

The money-counts part, that is, not the green part. Lot of major plutocrats in the mix, thanking whatever powers there be for Citizens United.

Benghazi

From CNN:

House Republicans’ report on the attack in Benghazi paints a picture of a perfect storm of bureaucratic inertia, rapidly worsening security in Libya and inadequate resources in the months that led up to the killings of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three colleagues on September 11, 2012.

CNN has obtained a portion of the report and the full version is expected to be released today.

Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time of the attack, told the House Benghazi Committee last year that she was aware of the dangers in Libya but “there was no actionable intelligence” indicating a planned attack.

The portion of the report obtained by CNN doesn’t offer a scathing indictment of Clinton. But it does argue that intelligence was available suggesting an attack was possible, and Clinton and a top aide, Patrick Kennedy, should have realized the risks posed to the Benghazi mission by extremist groups.

Who knows? Some of this may stick to the what-difference-does-it-make? lady.

Two ‘graphs have it:

“It is not clear what additional intelligence would have satisfied either Kennedy or the Secretary in understanding the Benghazi mission compound was at risk — short of an attack,” the report says.
Conservative members of the panel released a more political analysis of the attack Tuesday that’s far more critical of Clinton and the Obama administration. That study, authored by GOP Reps. Mike Pompeo of Kansas and Jim Jordan of Ohio, blames the attack on a “tragic failure of leadership.”
The first gives the judicious mainstream conclusion, containing the seed for the second, the drawing out that conclusion to the next level, you might say, of awareness.