EXTRA: Chicago a city of conventions, but also of sanctuary as well

Chicago likes to boast that we’re some sort of ultimate destination for places looking to hold a convention.

'Ground Zero' of the immigration protest movement this week

We have all these hotels, along with facilities capable of staging such events. When combined with all the other attractions of the city that people can stop by and visit while doing business here, we’d like to think there just isn’t any legitimate reason for people to want to do a convention elsewhere.

OF COURSE, THERE are those who’d rather have their events in Las Vegas – figuring that out-of-towners would feel more comfortable with gambling away their money rather than taking the time to study our city.

But nonetheless, we like to think we’re a major convention center. To the point that it becomes a big deal when Chicago actively tries to chase away a group that wanted to hold its professional gathering here.

But that’s just the case with the convention that began Tuesday at the Marriott Marquis Hotel – located just a block away from the McCormick Place convention hall.

For it seems the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency put together a program for all the businesses they work with in the course of their work. It would be a gathering of a who’s who of the federal immigration enforcement world. A chance for them to talk shop about their industry.

WHICH INCLUDES THE ways and means by which people are deported from the United States. Which, since we’re a sanctuary city that officially does not cooperate with the federal government in terms of enforcing immigration laws means we don’t even want their business.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot went so far as to try to get the hotel chain to kick the federals out, get them to find some other city to hold their gathering. It didn’t work. They’re still here in Chicago, and it means we’ll get to see people picketing the hotel to express their disgust with what it is these people do for a living.

It does seem that the hotel has agreed to prohibit immigration officials from trying to detain any guest of the hotel whose citizenship status is not quite clear. But that’s as far as they’re willing to go. They don’t want to lose any business.

So the gathering took place, with acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan being the key speaker Tuesday. And this will be one event that many Chicagoans will be more than glad to see finish its business and move on by week’s end.

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Send Trump back? Who’d want him!

President Donald Trump is an ethnic mixture of Scottish and German – the latter of which cause some people to deride him by reminding us at every chance they get that the family name originally was ‘Drumpf.’

TRUMP: Deport Donald? Who'd want him!

Back in the days when they were the immigrants, and the name change was made to come up with something they thought sounded more “American.”

SO NOW THAT the president is on a rhetorical kick of wanting to deride members of Congress whom he thinks aren’t American-enough to belong in this country – literally saying they should “go back to the broken and crime-infested countries they came from” – perhaps we ought to give it a thought.

Should we take this sorry excuse of a U.S president, revoke his American citizenship, and ship him off to either Scotland or Germany? Send him back “home,” so to speak!

Actually, that would be a ludicrous fantasy – and not because of the fact that Trump by birth is a Noo Yawker from the borough of Queens (even though he’d like us to think he’s the ultimate in Manhattan sophistication).

More it’s ludicrous because I suspect that neither Scotland nor Germany would want anything to do with The Donald or anyone in his pompous, egotistical family. They probably think they dodged a bullet of sorts by having his family emigrate away from them all those generations ago.

OCASIO-CORTEZ: Not easily silenced

EITHER THAT, OR maybe they’d concoct some sort of scheme by which they could confiscate his immense family wealth for themselves – thereby reducing the Trump family to penniless status.

Not that I expect this to happen either. I suspect our society is stuck with the Trump ego – and is going to have to live with the shame of knowing it really was possible for a vocal minority of voters to actually prevail in the 2016 election cycle.

PRESSLEY: Deport her to … Cincinnati?

A vocal minority that probably thinks it is entirely clever for Trump to go around using his Twitter account to spew nonsense like he did this past weekend – where he derided four outspoken members of the Democratic caucus of Congress for, basically, not treating their own ethnic and racial origins as something they ought to be greatly ashamed of.

TLAIB: Serving Michigan proudly

For what it’s worth, he was talking about Rep. Ilan Omar, D-Minn., who was born in Somalia and lived in a refugee camp in Kenya before coming to this country as a 12-year-old and ultimately settling in Minneapolis.

BUT THEN HE lumped in three other members of Congress – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan – as others who don’t really belong here.

All are U.S.-born, and in the case of Ocasio-Cortez may be Puerto Rican-ethnic but was raised in the suburbs of New York City. Only in the mini-mind of Donald Trump would they somehow not belong here, where I suspect his real objection to them having a prominence in society is due to the fact he regards many women as being decorative objects – and nothing else.

Think about it seriously. What are we going to do – deport Pressley back to her birth city of Cincinnati? It’s nonsense-talk like this that causes many to deride him as the “twit who Tweets” and to regard his constant use of Twitter as a true social embarrassment on our society – far worse than anything that any of the Congressional women has had to say.

ALTHOUGH IF YOU really want the truth, I suspect his attack on the Congresswomen was a deliberate tactic in its’ timing – as in Sunday, the day that was supposed to see federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials conducting many raids to deport all kinds of foreigners whom he also thinks don’t really belong “here.”

OMAR: Learned English off American TV

It seems the raids fizzled out, and really didn’t amount to much of anything.

Yet instead of now wondering how full of hot air Trump is for all his immigration raid trash talk, the focus is instead going toward Trump wanting to kick Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez out of the continental U.S.

Although even that wouldn’t achieve much – because Puerto Rico is a U.S. commonwealth. Meaning even if she were sent back to the Caribbean island, she’d still be within U.S. reach and more than capable of speaking out against Trump nonsense on oh so many issues. Nobody silences AOC that easily!

  -30-

EDITOR'S NOTE: It's worth pointing out that everybody here is standing before, and serving the interests of, the very same U.S. flag.

Trump seems determined to use immigration trash-talk to get re-elected

President Donald Trump wants another term in office, and seems determined to create the impression of himself as the guy who kicked all those frickin’ foreigners out of this country.

TRUMP: National equivalent of playground bully?

He’s the guy who wanted a series of national immigration raids to create a sudden boost in the actual number of deportations.

OF COURSE, SO many details got out about where and when these raids would take place that Trump put a hold on the plan – while insisting he did it as a courtesy to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who was working to put together a border aid package in Congress.

Not that anybody believed Trump would do anything out of courtesy to anybody but himself. Which is why the talk is starting up again that raids of a sort will start Sunday.

With activists saying they’re planning a protest rally in Chicago for Saturday, hoping to get several thousand individuals to publicly express their disgust with The Donald and his immigration desires.

This comes as Trump made his announcement Thursday of his latest desire to get information about non-citizens living in this country. He contemplated an executive order that would require a Census Bureau question as in being able to enact his desires without having to get Congress to sign off on them first, which truly is the “American Way” of doing things.

TRUMP, WHO HAS tried to get the 2020 Census population count altered so as to include questions about the citizenship status of those reporting, now says he’s going to require federal government agencies to turn any information over to the Commerce Department so it can be compiled into incriminating information.

He’s not concerned with the several court rulings that have found there to be no legitimate purpose to having such a question as part of the Census. Because the purpose of the Census is to get as accurate a count as possible of the U.S.’s actual population on April 1, 2020.

And Trump is determined enough that his way MUST prevail that he’s going to get his question included in some form, so as to gather up as much information as possible as to who exactly is here.

Which has some concerned that all Trump is doing is trying to gather intelligence that could someday be used to single out even more people for deportation. Trump backers try to claim that it’s overly cynical and paranoid to think ill of the presidential intentions on this issue.

BUT IT PROBABLY says much about the lack of trust the majority of our society has in the executive abilities of Trump that we don’t fully trust him. And for good reasons.

Because this is the man who started off his political portion of life by letting it be known he was more than willing to single out for abuse certain types of people – and was more than willing to kowtow to the segment of our society that has a strong xenophobic streak running down its spine.

The kind of people who will wet their pants with glee at the very thought of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents working overtime on Sunday to weed people out, arrest them, then deport them.

And those who are willing to think that the courts’ refusal to go along with Trump’s desires for a Census Bureau question that some in our society would not feel comfortable answering is merely evidence that the courts themselves ARE the problem.

IT WILL BE curious to see if this becomes a winning strategy; letting the ideologues amongst us think they are succeeding in reclaiming our country from those of us who’d prefer to see American ideals prevail in the way things are done.

Which is why I found interesting the results of a Morning Consult poll that shows one-time Vice President Joe Biden holding slight leads over would-be presidential challengers Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren.

But that is amongst people who identify themselves as most likely to actually vote. Which means it could well be in the hands of those slightly-more apathetic about casting ballots to decide whether we actually replace Trump come November of 2020.

Which may well be part of the Trump strategy as well – stir up so much trash that the bulk of people will be dismayed enough to not bother voting. Truly a sad strategy that says little about the man’s inherent character.

  -30-

Trump talk more about scaring people silly, not accomplishing anything

I’m not sure how seriously we ought to take the latest round of Trump trash talk that says, beginning Sunday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials will step up their efforts to remove from this country those individuals who haven’t dotted all the “I’s” and crossed all the “T’s” involved in getting a valid visa.

TRUMP: Sunday's the day; no more foreigners

Trump says the efforts will focus on certain cities, places that he thinks are so-called hell-holes that have too many foreigners. Yes, our very own Chicago is on the list.

SO ARE WE going to see people getting picked up, hauled away in a van, and wind up being processed for removal from this country?

Is this weekend literally “the end” of their stay in the United States for some 1 million people, as President Donald Trump insists?

I don’t doubt there are individuals who will, by coincidence, come to the attention of federal immigration officials and wind up being processed for removal this weekend.

But let’s be frank (or should we be Francisco?) here and say I doubt there will be much of a coordinated effort taking place across the more urban areas of our nation, all at the whim of Donald J. Trump.

FOR ONE THING, I suspect such an organized effort is beyond the organizational skills of federal immigration officials. If anything, it might be better to study how many people continue to evade the attention of immigration this weekend, or in coming weeks.

I suspect that Trump’s trash talk is more about el Donaldo thinking he can scare the chones off of so many Latinos by making them think the end is near for their search of a better life in the United States.

Because the dreaded la Migra is going to come and get you, similar to how some people like to tell their children tales of the boogeyman coming to take you away.

PRITZKER: The protector?

Trump thinking he can terrify Latinos (and anybody else who isn’t “white American” enough to satisfy his definition of “belonging” in this country) probably gives him a tingle of joy. Although for all we know, that ‘tingle’ is really just the president wetting his pants.

OR MORE IMPORTANT, it could be something he says just to give his silent majority (which is most definitely not silent and really only consists of about one-third of our society’s population) a jolt – to the point where they’ll sing his praises and talk up a storm about how we need “four more years” of a Trump presidency.

It’s political rhetoric, not serious public policy. Because it is delusional to think that Trump could seriously achieve the notion of removing more than a million people from this country without causing a sudden vacuum in our society.

Then again, I have to wonder about the three bills Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law on Friday – all related to immigration and preserving the notion that our state government views the federal immigration officials who get worked up over xenophobic fantasy as political nitwits.

Illinois now forbids the private detention centers that immigration officials want to hold all these foreigners until they can get around to deporting them. Also, non-citizens will be able to apply for financial aid if they’re accepted at state colleges.

AND LOCAL LAW enforcement officials across Illinois will be prohibited from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. Which theoretically means immigration officials will have to do their own work in terms of enforcing federal law. Local cops will stay out of it.

Which ought to make sense to everybody. Except for nativist ideologues who want to view police of all types as a unified force that harasses people who aren’t exactly like themselves.

As much as Trump is trying to gain the support of those ideologue-inclined individuals, Pritzker wants people to know clearly that he (and Illinois) is on the complete opposite side of this political equation.

Think of it this way; Trump wants to scare up the foreigners, while Pritzker wants to frighten the ideologues who can’t comprehend a society that is accepting to all. What does it say about you personally if you side with Trump and his trash talk?

  -30-

Trump talk of “punishing” U.S. w/ foreigners shows ideologues know little

President Donald Trump’s latest trash-talk of taking all the people trying to come to this country and deliberately sending them to the big cities – particularly those cities that have enacted “sanctuary city” policies that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials and policies – show just how little he and his ideologue backers comprehend reality.

Not just Noo Yawk feels this way

Trump’s rhetoric from late last week further indicated his nonsensical beliefs that these non-Anglo, non-U.S.-born people are the dregs of humanity.

SO HE’S GOING to punish those of us who refuse to go along with his xenophobic-motivated immigration policies by flooding us with foreigners. That’ll show us, he likely thinks!

The problem with such a line of reasoning is that many of those municipalities already are foreigner-friendly, and the existence of those ethnic enclaves within the cities is a significant part of their character.

If anything, they make the municipalities places where upper-scale people might themselves want to locate. Even if they don’t live in the same neighborhoods right next to each other, they give the upper-scale individuals the ability to say they live in varied communities.

Compared to some of those rural places that are so overwhelmingly white and un-ethnic that they appear to be unfriendly to anyone who didn’t actually grow up there – and also often take on such a character that many of their younger, more-motivated residents feel the need to go away to college and find someplace else to live their adult lives.

I DON’T DOUBT that the people living in the rural, white parts of the country would find Trump’s nonsense-talk all the more appealing because it would reinforce their thoughts that they’re the only people who ought to matter.

But if it really happened, it would also further enhance the notion that these rural communities would become further isolated from the masses who are the real tone of our society.

If Trump really were to try to enact his suggestion, he’d be doing so much long-term damage to the areas where the people who like the Age of Trump we’re now in. The harm would be so long-lasting and permanent.

Would plans actually hurt rural Illinois political interests?

Which is why even Trump’s allies are pointing out the flaws of his idea, and are hoping that this is all just another example of Trump Talk – rancid ramblings meant to do nothing more than get the idiotic ideologues all worked up into a rage on the president’s behalf.

PERSONALLY, I’D THINK the idea would be reprehensible to Illinois politicos of the Republican persuasion – because adding to the Chicago population would do little more than further enhance the urban leanings that already work to the detriment of rural Illinois.

As in the one that ensures Illinois’ congressional delegation is 13 Democrats and five Republicans. With the likelihood that the next reapportionment of Congressional districts after 2020 will cost Illinois a seat, you have to wonder if those rural, isolationist-minded people realize that seat likely will come from their portion of the state.

Then again, there’s no accounting for sense when it comes to politicos.

Take the measure now pending in the Illinois General Assembly, where state Rep. C.D. Davidsmeyer, R-Jacksonville, wants his colleagues to pass a resolution that urges Congress to break Chicago away from Illinois.

Trump and Davidsmeyer (below) … 

HE TOLD THE State Journal-Register newspaper of Springfield that rural people are losing their chances to make Illinois more like rural Missouri or Indiana because Chicago, by its very nature, is in competition with places like New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

I’ll agree that people have a right to live off in isolation, if that’s really all they want out of life, even though I can’t comprehend why they’d want to.

… both don't comprehend consequences

But I definitely don’t think those people have a right to dictate to tell the rest of us we have to live like them.

So if Trump thinks he’s punishing places like Chicago, I’d say we’ll take these newcomers – who would not only boost the city’s population count to our political advantage, it would also give us a slew of newcomers eager to work hard for better lives – unlike those who want to live in isolation and on the decline.

  -30-

Could Illinois impose a statewide ban on immigration detention centers?

I’m sure the ideologues amongst us were extremely satisfied when officials in downstate Dwight, Ill., voted to allow a detention center to be built within their boundaries.

Is detention center issue best settled at Statehouse, … 

The center is viewed as a place where people facing violations of federal immigration policy could be detained while officials work through the legal process of deporting those individuals out of the United States.

IT IS A facility that officials have proposed building in so many different communities throughout Illinois AND Indiana, only to run into constant opposition from local officials who don’t want any such thing being built within their communities.

Because no matter how much ideologues try to disguise such facilities as a humane place to hold people facing charges of immigration violations, the simple fact is that they are jail-like in nature.

There’s just no disguising it. We’re looking to lock up people, even though most of them haven’t done anything criminal in nature. And no, not even their immigration violation – which is more a civil offense rather than something for which they could face incarceration in a real prison facility surrounded by other criminals.

Anyway, it seems Dwight was a facility far enough from Chicago that the locals weren’t inclined to share the hostile feelings that many locals have about having a prison-like facility built within their boundaries.

IF ANYTHING, IT seems that Dwight was willing because the community has a history of containing prison facilities. Dwight was once the site of the prison for women within the Illinois Department of Corrections.

I’m sure some locals remember the idea of prisons as being a source of local jobs. Even though I always wondered about people who work in corrections facilities – it is, after all, work in prison. One literally has to go to jail every day. Possibly amongst the most depressing employment environment one could find.

… or something best left to the locals?

Which is why I find the Illinois House of Representatives’ latest actions intriguing – led by state Rep. Kelly Cassidy, D-Chicago, they’re pushing for a new law that would make it illegal for local governments to permit any private company from allowing any such detention facility from being built within their communities.

It would demonize at a statewide level the very concept that the ideologues want to view as economic development. All because they don’t want to see more prison like facilities being built anywhere in Illinois.

IT DEFINITELY PUTS Illinois further in the camp of those people who don’t want to see ideologues and their hostile views prevail.

Particularly since the thing about these detention facilities that is key to comprehending them is that the proponents of such places think that a key element is that they be owned and operated by private companies.

Meaning a lot of the usual regulations that govern prison operations just wouldn’t apply. Not only do they appease the ideologues on immigration ideals (deport all the foreigners!), they’re also anti-labor.

None of those pesky rules that might require detention to be done with certain ideals of humanity in mind. And that also up the overall cost of operating detention facilities.

IN SHORT, I’M sure the ideologues are now prepared to lambast the Illinois Legislature as being even further out-of-touch with their conservative ideals than they already do so.

CASSIDY: Pushing for statewide ban

Then again, these are the people who got all excited last week when a judge struck down an attempt by suburban Deerfield to ban high-powered assault weapons from being owned by anyone within their community.

Yet another effort to try to impose their views upon all of Illinois – no matter how out-of-line it is with the way the bulk of us view the issue.

Which makes this an issue likely to provoke a brawl across the state in coming months. Because although a majority of us in places like Joliet and Crete headed east to Gary, Ind., have made it clear how much we detest the concept, there are those who will continue to push it until we get a state law. And even then will likely fight it further.

  -30-

The further away from Chicago, the better – that is, if it has to happen at all!

It has become the immigration-related issue that just won’t die, and manages to take on a more intense character of pathos with each evolution it makes in the process.

The old Dwight Correctional Center for women ceased to exist in 2013

No, I’m not talking about President Donald Trump’s fantasies of erecting a wall of sorts along the U.S./Mexico border.

THIS IS ABOUT the notion of building detention facilities with which to lock up people awaiting immigration-related offenses that could result in their eventual deportation from this country.

Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have dreams of using facilities scattered across the nation – including one whose intent would be to hold people found living in the Chicago-area while lacking a valid Visa or legitimate citizenship status.

Currently, people facing immigration violations often get sent off to county jails with which the federal government has contracts with. In our case, many people caught here wind up in the McHenry County Jail to wait while their immigration cases are resolved.

A concept that offends many people because it means that people who haven’t committed a criminal offense (no matter how much the ideologues want to think it ought to be regarded as one) are being locked up with people who HAVE committed crimes and are merely awaiting the day they’re sent off to the custody of the Illinois Department of Corrections to serve their time.

THE IDEA IS that having these separate detention facilities means we can take the immigration cases out of jail with criminals. But we can still treat the individuals like criminals – which is what the ideologues are really after!

The problem is that people of rationality hate the idea of any kind of facility that is jail-like from being in or near their communities.

Dwight not far enough from Chgo for project

That is why local officials in places like Joliet, Crete and Hopkins Park in Illinois, along with Hobart, Gary and Elkhart County in Indiana, have all turned down the idea – not giving in to the fact that many of these places (particularly Gary, Ind.) could use the economic boost that could be derived from construction of a new facility and the possibility of jobs for people already living there.

This is just not a popular idea, which is why it seems officials are looking for a site further and further away from the heart of Chicago that will say “yes” and accept their plans.

THE BLOOMINGTON PANTAGRAPH is reporting that officials are looking at Dwight (a Livingston County community not far from the interstate connecting Chicago to St. Louis) as a possible site.

Local planning commission officials are considering annexation of a site near down so they can offer it up to federal officials for the plan.

Perhaps people are figuring Dwight is the right kind of place for detention facilities because, for many years, Dwight was the location of the Illinois Corrections Department facility for women found guilty of criminal offenses.

Maybe they also figure that a community with less than 2 percent Latino ethnic composition of its population won’t share the kind of hang-ups that communities up our way have with regards to such facilities.

ALTHOUGH THIS COULD be one of those instances where people surprise us by overcoming whatever hang-ups they may have and wind up doing the right thing.

As much as I like the idea that this ‘detention’ concept for immigration is now solidly outside of the Chicago metropolitan area (most of us only regard Dwight as a train stop between here and Springfield when they’re forced to use Amtrak), it is a concept that would be better off withering away altogether.

This detention center in Tacoma, Wash., could be replicated in Dwight

Because we ought to be trying to figure out ways to make better sense of our federal immigration laws and clean up the bureaucratic mess that we now have.

Instead of building facilities so we can house people with pending cases so we can let them stretch out even longer – before the ideologues try to have their way of deporting everybody from this country who isn’t exactly like themselves.

  -30-

Playing part of a pol, without having to carry out accompanying responsibilities

Perhaps it’s only natural that people who can’t hold a position any longer (or are just tired of it) use their fame to try to get themselves a television gig.

Will we someday have to see Rahm … 

Being a “commentator” allows them to keep portraying themselves as some sort of expert on whatever it is they’re interested in – without having to carry out any of the actual responsibilities.

OR HAVING TO go through the hassles of continually getting themselves re-elected to office!

Think about it? We’re now forevermore going to see Luis Gutierrez as the outspoken critic of our national immigration policy, while Rahm Emanuel will portray himself for as long as he wishes as Chicago’s “mayor.”

No matter how much the thought of those two men in those positions stirs up levels of contempt and disgust, we’ll always now think of them as “congressman” and “mayor” no matter what it is they really do in life.

These thoughts popped into my head when, on Monday, Gutierrez felt compelled to release a statement saying he’s now a part of CNN. He’ll be someone they can put on the air to talk about immigration policy and the Puerto Rican population of our nation.

… and Luis speak out … 

IN SHORT, THE man who during his two-plus decades in Congress portrayed himself as “Mr. Puerto Rico” himself any time a related issue came up on Capitol Hill can now go about portraying himself as the ultimate expert.

Those of us who remember back even further when he was a City Council member bellowing about like a crowing rooster (giving him the nickname “El Gallito”) will find act old – if not downright repetitive.

Yet the rest of the nation is going to get his share of the act. Particularly the ideologues who often will find themselves on the receiving end of whatever admonishment Gutierrez feels to dish out at any given time.

It assures that even though Gutierrez ceased to be a Congressman last week, he’ll continue to be heard. Personally, I’m waiting for the moment Gutierrez successor Rep. Jesus Garcia, D-Ill., does something that Luis considers to be a screw-up.

… on our television sets?

I HAVE NO doubt the rhetoric will be ugly – in both English en Español.

Not that it will be any more pretty when Rahm Emanuel finally steps down as mayor come May. For the talk is that brother Ari, a professional talent agent in his own right, already is doing the groundwork for Rahm to become one of the ranks of professional commentators himself.

For as a former member of Congress and White House aide under both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, he has a certain amount of issues and policy background. Combined with his eight years as Chicago mayor, he may wind up trying to claim himself as the expert on all sorts of things.

Could Garcia be blasted by Luis and Rahm?

Maybe he can even develop a personality of sorts that would allow him to be declared an unofficial “mayor” of the nation – someone who can forevermore be thought of as having an expertise. Even on issues upon which he knows absolutely nothing.

THAT ACTUALLY WAS the niche Rudy Giuliani once held, as the symbolic “America’s mayor” – at least until he became associated publicly with fellow New Yorker Donald Trump and relegated himself to the niche of the crackpot’s protector.

Will Rahm replace Rudy as 'America's mayor?'

Is the nation ready for Rahm; to speak out at his own will on whatever he thinks interesting? Anybody who tries claiming Rahm doesn’t have Rudy’s stature is engaging in crackpot rhetoric of their own – both men served as mayors of their respective cities for eight years.

But every time they appear on television, we get reminded of their stints – and many of us may wind up thinking they’re still in office doing great things; instead of merely blathering about on various issues that they had little to actually do with.

Which almost has me wondering if the greater point of running for electoral office is to gain the years of experience so that, one day, one can claim the legitimacy so they can someday go on television and have people think they used to “be somebody.”

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Re-elect Burke? Tough, but the Chicago ‘Rules’ won’t rule out possibility

Call them, if you will, the “rules” by which the Chicago electorate tends to operate when it comes to Election Day behavior.

BURKE: Could he still win Feb. 26?

It’s not wrong to cast a ballot for someone who faces some sort of indictment or other criminal charge. We literally take that “innocent until proven guilty” staple and want to see a criminal conviction before we’ll believe the worst in political people.

TO THE POINT where some people even try arguing that a public official ought to be able to remain in office right up to the day they’re carted off and sent to ‘da slammer.’

The other rule might not be a Chicago rule as just a good rule of thumb for understanding the concept of Latino political empowerment and why the number of Latino elected officials doesn’t equal their share of the population. It’s that the Latino Election Day turnout often stinks to the point of embarrassment.

It also helps to understand that despite what conservative ideologues want to believe, Chicago is NOT some politically radical place. Our Democratic majorities often consist of people who are fairly neutral minded – except to those ideologues whose idea of “moderate” is somewhere to the right of Atilla, the Hun.

It is so unlikely that our city would ever produce a pseudo-radical such as New York City’s new member of Congress, Alejandra Ocasio-Cortez. The woman whose very presence offends the right likely would have been too offensive to Chicago voters, IF she lived here rather than in the Bronx.

THIS LITTLE COLLECTION of pithy comments is the basis of why I’m not prepared to write off the chance of Edward M. Burke getting himself re-elected to another term in the City Council that would give him the beginning of a second half-century as a Chicago alderman.

GARCIA: Can his influence beat Burke?

Now as to whether he can survive long enough to finish out another four-year term running through 2023, I don’t know!

Burke may well be in a deep-enough legal predicament that he won’t be around come that year. He may have to resign himself in ways more significant than giving up the Finance committee chairmanship – the title that allowed him to bop about City Hall like a Lord and treat the rest of the aldermen as his minions.

Personally, I wonder about the legitimacy of the charges, but I also know many people will be swayed by the very fact that the federal government is proceeding with the process that eventually will put Burke on trial – OR pressure him into pleading guilty to something ominous sounding.

WHILE OTHERS ALSO are so eager to see Burke “taken down” for something sounding criminal that they’ll believe it just has to be – even if they really can’t explain it or comprehend why it ought to be illegal.

But whether Burke is guilty of a federal offense or not is really a completely different question from whether he can win re-election.

I can’t help but notice the significant amounts of campaign cash he already has, combined with the fact he had a fundraising event recently to add to the $12 million total he already had. There are many people in the legal community who are now on the record as being willing to offer the greatest act of support they can give a politician – a campaign contribution.

There will be those who will view the growing number of Latinos who live in that particular ward (nearly four of every five residents) as some sort of threat, and Burke’s re-election as maintaining of tradition.

AS TO HOW he tries to appeal to Latinos to not view him as the enemy, it literally has me wondering if he’s out to position himself as a modern-day descendant of the San Patricios. That being the 1840s unit of Irish immigrants who came to this country, enlisted in the U.S. military, then responded to intense anti-Catholic/immigrant prejudice by switching sides during the Mexican/American War.

OCASIO-CORTEZ: Too radical to win Chicago?

Traitors to the ideologues, they are heroes to the Mexican people – viewed as Irish allies to the idea of their independence. Which is how I’m sure Burke would like the Mexican/American populace of his ward to think of himself.

Even before the indictment, Burke was going about as making himself a backer of people offended by use of the Gary/Chicago International Airport (funded partially by the city Department of Aviation) as part of the process of deporting people from this country.

Will it work? I don’t know. Just another of the many questions that will make this particular aldermanic race a battle – rather than the usual shoo-in – for Burke. But not, so sayeth the Chicago Rules, an improbability.

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People willing to play partisan politics, so long as they think it's just someone else's money at stake, not their own

A pair of intriguing tidbits I stumbled across Friday on the Internet – the federal government shutdown affects the IRS employees who would process tax returns. Those people who go out of their way to file their returns promptly in hopes of getting a near-immediate refund will have to wait to get their money back.

IRS to become factor in govt shutdown

I also stumbled across a Facebook-type friend of mine who offered up the opinion that the shutdown will last “until” people start noticing their refunds aren’t coming in.

IMPLYING THAT DESPITE all of President Donald Trump’s attempts to turn the lack of a federal budget in place into a fight for a barricade to be built along the U.S./Mexico border will ultimately end as a fight over income tax return checks.

Or perhaps I should say, the direct deposits made into their bank accounts of their refunds.

And dadgummit, the people will be more than willing to blame Trump for the whole affair – if they think he’s depriving them of their own money.

This whole government shutdown has become pathetic – even by the standards of partisan political battles. It is a complete non-issue that has been elevated to the level of significance during the past two weeks.

SOMETHING THAT SHOULD never have gained any traction has elevated an irrelevant (to the overall budget questions) issue such as immigration policy, and is being turned into something catastrophic.

What’s really sad is we have no real idea how long it could last. For Trump himself has made comments implying both that this is an issue that could extend for months, if not years; and that it won’t. If anything, his admission that it won't sound more realistic, because otherwise, we'd have to think The Donald is dumb enough to make the same mistakes of stubbornness that dragged the Illinois governorship of Bruce Rauner to its demise last election.

Will IRS, credit card co's push Trump to back down

But the, it wouldn't be surprising to learn that Trump thinks he can declare the situation a “national emergency” and issue an executive order to have a border wall built regardless of what anybody else thinks, while turning the budgetary issue into a moot point. Which, truth be told, is the only style Trump has for governing.

If anything, his presidency to date has been evidence of why business executives with oversized egos are completely UNqualified to play politics or govern the public.

WE’RE GOING TO see politics more and more in coming days – what with the newly-elected House of Representatives that has Democratic Party leadership being more than willing this week to take as one of its first actions a vote that puts in place a federal budget that enables the government to operate.

Oh, and by the way, it ignores Trump’s wall “demands” completely, leading many to say Trump will use his “veto” powers and keep the shutdown going – with him them spewing more trash talk to place blame on Democrats.

Particularly on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., whom I’m sure Trump will greatly resent if history winds up recording her as the woman who thumped Trump on this issue, or any other that will come up in the next couple of years.

There are those politicos who are saying that a failure to get something resembling a border barricade built will be the ultimate demise of his presidency. That is, if you believe Rep. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C.

WHICH IS NONSENSE talk, except that Trump himself spews so much nonsense that I don’t doubt he’s inane enough to believe it all!

Does it offend Trump ego to deal w/ Madame Speaker?

So I don’t really know how long all of the nonsense is going to last. It may well be that tax return issue that forces action to take place. Because we’re at that time of year where some people like to file their returns immediately after New Year’s Day so they can get a quickie refund – and a cash influx to help pay all those bills they incurred during the holiday season.

Forget the high-minded talk of Democratic ideals or cheap “America First” rhetoric or whatever partisan side’s talk you tend to listen to.

The real demanding presence could wind up being Visa or MasterCard sending people the bills demanding they “pay up!,” which they won’t be able to until that refund check, actual or digital, comes rolling in.

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EXTRA: Bureaucracy (sadly) rules!

We’ve been hearing a lot in recent weeks about these caravans of people from central American nations who’d like to have a chance at a better life in the United States.

Within sight of United States, Trump creates more bureaucracy to thwart caravan

The ones that have been traveling throughout Mexico, and some of whom have actually made it as far as Tijuana. Meaning they’re literally here. Right across the border from San Diego and U.S. territory proper.

WE’VE ALSO HEARD the stories of U.S. military personnel being amassed along the border, so as to appease those people who approve of the Age of Trump we now live in who want those foreigners kept out of the country in whatever way possible.

It was encouraging to learn of military officials expressing objections to being used in such a manner. Yet in some ways, it is equally discouraging to see the tactic being used by Trump to achieve the ultimate goal of keeping those people out of the country.

Let the bureaucrats rule!

As in throw so many legal obstacles in the way of actually being able to enter this country (the one that claims it is all about helping “your tired, your poor. Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free”) that maybe, just maybe, many of them will merely give up and go back home.

Leaders of U.S. and Mexico (below) … 

IT SEEMS THE U.S. officials have actually reached an agreement with Mexico; by which the people now waiting their turn in Tijuana to have a chance at seeking asylum here will have to wait in Mexico.

Even though their cases will be decided in U.S.-based courts, they won’t be able to wait it out here. And it will be a wait – because the number of individuals now seeking and likely to seek asylum will take months for the courts to properly dispose of.

If anything, this has been the attitude that our federal government has taken in dealing with immigration – creating a bureaucratic mess meant to thwart the desires of those who’d want to be a productive part of our society here.

Rather than try to reform our immigration laws so as to deal in any sensible way with the masses who want to be part of life here, we’d rather create as many obstacles as we can dream up.

… work out deal that lets bureaucracy rule

ANYBODY WHO TRIES to say that we’re merely trying to deal with the masses of people passing through Mexico on the way to the United States in logical manner is spewing nonsense-talk. Trump, after all, also let it be known he’s prepared to close the U.S./Mexico border outright “if for any reason it becomes necessary.”

Such as perhaps if too many of the people who have caravanned their way from central America to Southern California actually manage to get the U.S. court system to approve their desires to live here.

It’s not surprising that, in Mexico, there are people who are getting upset at the notion of these central American natives having to be held within their country just because the United States has certain officials who wish they could make the issue go away.

It’s like our ideological nitwit officials are trying to dump a problem off on someone else – exactly the same way they always try to claim other countries are dumping their problems off on U.S.

THIS WHOLE SITUATION is one that is bound to become an embarrassment to the United States. It will be one of the biggest buffoonish acts to be committed by the Trump presidency.

ROBERTS: Challenging Trump viewpoint

Not that I expect the fanatics who approve of The Donald to ever admit any of this. All they’ll hear are the words “foreigner” and “Mexico” and they’ll be desperate to accept it, no matter how absurd the mechanics of it all are.

Because if they really had faith in this nation and its systems of operating, they’d be willing to trust the courts to weed through the large number of people seeking asylum in this country.

Then again, these people are the ones who these days are denouncing Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts for his recent statement that, “there are no Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. An independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”

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