Jumping for joy about Cubs, Role of the tax increase in Illinois, A Knife in the Dark

Heavenly joy, earthly angst, bloody murder

* Priest homilist yesterday a.m. in Andersonville, in re: “more joy in heaven over one repentent sinner,” etc., likened that joy to the joy manifested by Cub fans jumping up and down outside Wrigley the night before. Which I thought was a nice shot.

* Meanwhile, back in The Village, in the Oct. 18 CLAIM meeting at Julian, Rep. Lilly unhesitatingly recommended higher taxes.

Asked what “tough vote” she might cast to raise needed revenue, she right away said she would vote to “raise taxes,” calling it a “very difficult” vote. She and Sen. Harmon, “did budget revenue rally,” she said, and came up with “good ideas,” all of which “will have impact on some entity in our state.” We’d love to hear those ideas! . . . .

Read the rest here. . . .

Vote for the creep, says James Bowman

Fellow with my name speaks for both of us:

Someone said to me way back in June, after the nominees of the two parties had clinched their respective nominations, “Well, are you voting for the crook or the creep?” I assumed that there was intended in the question an allusion to that memorable election for governor of Louisiana in which the once-indicted but not at that point convicted former Governor Edwin Edwards ran against David Duke and supporters of the former sported bumper stickers reading: “Vote for the crook. It’s important.” At the time of my friend’s question, we didn’t yet know either quite how crooked Hillary Clinton was or quite how creepy Donald Trump was — though there were plenty in both parties who affected to think him as bad as David Duke — but of course one instantly understood which candidate was which.

And I had no doubt as to the only possible answer. I thought then as I do now that the implications for the Republic of electing the crook were much more seriously troubling than those of electing the creep. The corruption of the Department of Justice under President Obama was already evident, as was his own preference for lawless governance by executive order. Who could possibly suppose that the breakdown in the rule of law would be arrested by a President Hillary Clinton? And this was before we knew with as much surety as we do now that she would have to continue and increase the politicization of the Justice Department (not to mention the Supreme Court) if only for her own self-protection?

Nicely said, Mr. Bowman.

Hatch Act alert, Hatch Act alert, after NYT man came to call . . .

Guess who’s asking about you, said State Dept. to Hillary campaign:

State Dept. Tipped Clinton Campaign Off About NYT Reporter Working Email Story

The Daily Callerreports:

The State Department tipped the Hillary Clinton campaign off last year that a New York Times reporter was asking questions about Clinton’s emails.

The revelation undermines the State Department’s claims that it has not worked to help Clinton during the ongoing email scandal.

“State just called to tell me that Mike Schmidt seems to have what appear to be summaries of some of the exchanges in the 300 emails the committee has,” Nick Merrill wrote in a March 14, 2015 email.

What’s a State Department for, anyhow?

Sen. Lightford, Sen. Harmon at Oak Park’s Julian School in election-season 2013, on early-childhood ed . . .

. . .  quizzed by CLAIM (Committee for Legislative Action, Intervention and Monitoring) parents, as recounted in Chapter 8, “Legislators go to school,” of Illinois Blues: How the Ruling Party Talks to Voters.

The first CLAIM questioner sailed a softball, asking the legislators how they had supported President Obama’s program for education, without specifying any part of that program, which I must admit, I would have been hard pressed to elucidate. Were they up to snuff on what was directed by that man in the White House?

The first to respond was Kimberly A. Lightford, a senator from nearby Maywood since 1998, Democrat like the others, longtime member and currently vice-chair of the Senate’s education committee — a qualifying factor in the circumstance, she being the only one of the four who represented no street or alley of Oak Park.

She was clearly a senate heavyweight — assistant majority leader and member of at least five other committees: Labor, Education, Executive, Financial Institutions, and Redistricting, plus chair of the Senate’s Black Caucus.

She was also a special friend of public schools, having led a successful push to lower compulsory schooling age from seven to six and striving to reduce it to age five. Some parents objected to the six, she said, but it’s a “perfect time” for early-childhood schooling, she said. She also happily noted that there had been “no deep-freeze” in public-school funding in that year.

Harmon said nothing to contradict her but injected a caution: “We all like early-childhood education, but it’s a fight every year because of budget pressures.” He was sitting at a table with three legislators whose comments and records demonstrated no great concern for budget pressures.

Rep. LaShawn Ford was next. . . .

More more more to come  . . .

Illinois Blues: How the Ruling Party Talks to Voters is available in paperback, epub and Amazon Kindle formats.