13 Comments - South of I-80 - Wednesday, Jul 11, 07 @ 7:52 am: Paul Green, on the Spike O’Dell WGN Radio program, when asked to rank the G-Rod’s performance, give him a “2″! - Patriot - Wednesday, Jul 11, 07 @ 8:00 am: Ranking is too high. - Anon - Wednesday, Jul 11, 07 @ 8:05 am: Rich (or Paul), you missed a good story on the gov in this mornings Trib. Here is a nugget from the second to last paragraph: “Emerging from Tuesday’s budget meeting with legislators, Blagojevich discussed the possibility of postponing his multibillion-dollar proposals for health care and education until next year. Senate Democrats who attended said they also discussed reducing the number of new casinos they would support to help pay for the programs.” - Anon - Wednesday, Jul 11, 07 @ 8:08 am: Another good story; “Jones plots ethics end run” Suggestion in there to do a special session on ethics……outstanding idea, should also do public hearings on it too. - Gregor - Wednesday, Jul 11, 07 @ 8:17 am: Sounds like trial balloons going up on a budget compromise. Or it could be Rod just being himself again. Rich, when you did that bus tour with the guy, did you gain any insight into why he is like this now? Or are you saving that for your book?:-) With all the craziness around the budget situation, it must be super-tempting for people with the real info on the subpoenas to leak them. The entire administration is already teetering like a bad game of Jenga. When a leak happens, I think it will precitpitate a tremendous public reaction and many changes. - Captain America - Wednesday, Jul 11, 07 @ 8:38 am: Postponement of the Governor’s health care and edcuation funding initiative is the best feasible alternative. It’s the first politically rational statement,that I’ve read from the Governor about the budget impasse. Of course, since the Governor has alienated nearly everyone, his chances of enacting his tax proposals next year are nil, particularly since it’s an election year. But “wait until next year” is a decent face-saving strategy, although it has never worked for Cubs fans. - Captain America - Wednesday, Jul 11, 07 @ 8:46 am: That’s really good news about the Cook County Jury (sic) Juvenile Center. the whole situation has been an incredible disgrace. I’m keeping my fingers croossed that they can actually get Dunlap to take the job and give hinm a free hand to do whatever is necessary to get that mess cleaned up. - dan l - Wednesday, Jul 11, 07 @ 8:47 am: School Shootings: Daley, Corruption to Blame. So now da Mare has enabled young violent offenders? Let’s blame him for open fire hydrants to. Back in the real world, we all understand that “grass roots” law enforcement methods are a gigantic dog and pony show. And, that this particular concept is typical fare for a group of folks who want to make cops into social workers. - Rich Miller - Wednesday, Jul 11, 07 @ 8:53 am: People, Morning Shorts is designed to include items that won’t be blogged about later. You ought to know this by now. Patience, please. I’m working on those other posts. - Cassandra - Wednesday, Jul 11, 07 @ 10:19 am: Given the Juvenile Center’s decades of successful resistance to any interference by outsiders, Mr. Dunlap would be an idiot to take the job. He won’t have control. Period. As to the prosecutor situation, I suspect something more than salaries is going on here. Stroger likely wants to put his own person in as State’s Attorney. This is probably a message to Devine–no salary increases while you’re there. The replacement is likely to be African American. While I don’t believe in race-based hiring (epidemic in Democratic administrations) I think that the astonishingly high rate of incarceration of minorities in Illinois, a situation that costs us a lot of money but provides a lot of jobs for Downstaters, needs a reformer who actually pays attention to the racial disparities. It may be that only a minority would have the will and the stature to do this. Not to say that minority communities have been particularly active on this issue. They have been amazingly silent on the racial makeup of prison populations. As to Stroger’s tax increase hints. Are we surprised? Time to start writing to your commissioner. With no property tax relief and a possible county hike, those property tax bills could be going up up up soon. - Captain America - Wednesday, Jul 11, 07 @ 10:20 am: Maybe I’m in denial here, but i really do not believe the Clinton-Obama Illinois results covered in Animal Farm and on politicalwire.com yesterday. This is part of the Clinton “invitabilty” strategy. Hilary’s looking pretty tough to beat in many of the state preference polls, but the Illinios result just is too incredible to be true! There is an intersting short article in Campaign & Elections about things pollsters do to skew the results. - Squideshi - Wednesday, Jul 11, 07 @ 1:19 pm: For purposes of full disclosure, I am an alumnus of Illinois State University and am still a bit bitter that the University of Illinois hijacked what what SHOULD have been the “state university.” That aside, I think that Illinois need to work on decentralizing centers of high-education and learning like Urbana/Champaign. While it might be nice to live in a “college town” with lots of culture and activities, let’s spread the “wealth” around a little by making better use of telecommuting and distance learning through online education. This only reflects the reality that it today’s busy modern lifestyle, and it also has the nice advantage of supporting a reduced need for commute travel–helping the environment. - ChampaignDweller - Wednesday, Jul 11, 07 @ 5:08 pm: I think Emil Jones is already working on that by sending loads to money to the Chicago college that named something after him. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.