103 Comments - Keyrock - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 12:47 pm: Unfortunately, a Mad Max movie. - Hamlet's Ghost - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 12:50 pm: Q: What will February 25, 2017 look like? A: http://humanevents.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/trainwreck-620×452.png - Hamlet's Ghost - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 12:52 pm: Bad link, my apologies, please delete. It was supposed to be a link to an image of two trains colliding head on. - Endangered Moderate Species - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 12:52 pm: Groundhog Day - Arsenal - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 12:53 pm: The Big Five will have made some real progress in their second meeting about the FY16 budget. - 360 Degree TurnAround - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 12:54 pm: Remember the Jetsons? That is what Illinois will look like in 478 days. Once we do away with collective bargaining and prevailing wage and workers’ comp - flying cars and homes on stilts will flow to Illinois. - Omega Man - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 12:56 pm: @Hamlet’s Ghost - A “link to nowhere” is actually an appropriate metaphor for the future of Illinois. - Roamin' Numeral - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 12:56 pm: President Donald Trump will have headache #4,368 because of his selection of Bruce Rauner of Illinois as his running mate. - Almost the Weekend - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 12:57 pm: Cabinet members, your mileage, just like our previous two annual meetings will be paid when we pass our first budget. - Oswego Willy - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 12:57 pm: The Capitol will be lit by torches Barter will replace state transactions State vehicles will be skateboards and bicycles - all stolen The Illinois universities, including junior colleges, will be sold off as new Pullman Towns The Department of Corrections will become one big mistake Deregulations of every single business under the sun in Illinois becomes all too real. Bridges become dead ends “Bridges” become “dead ends” K-12 Education finally become a statewide “home school” trend Everything burns down, crime rises, hospitals become “self-serve” stops for health Dirt roads become “fashionable” Street lights in towns become expensive planters Cook County Courts in Illinois become “state of the art” with all the carbon paper they have hoarded Now… the bad that could happen… - DuPage - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 12:58 pm: Prosperity is just around the corner.-Hoover Prosperity is just 24 months away.-Rauner - Henry Francis - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 12:58 pm: Ummmm . . . like Happy Feet? And the Governor will look like St. Sebastian. - Johnny Q. Suburban - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:01 pm: Pat Quinn will be seen mowing the mansion’s lawn having just been sworn in to replace newly recalled ex-Gov Bruce Rauner. - lurkish - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:02 pm: (building on the first comment) The state capitol is now the Thunderdome. - Stuck on the 3rd Floor - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:02 pm: Exactly like December 31st, 2015, since the office supply vendors will have cut the State off and there won’t be any new calendars in State offices. - Anonymous - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:03 pm: I will be living in a Van down by the river. - jt - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:03 pm: Like Feb.25,493 except with different names. - Quizzical - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:03 pm: Venture capitalists will be chasing Clive Owen and an expectant mother around a dystopian landscape in hopes of commoditizing the biology behind the first pregnancy in recent memory. - MrJM - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:03 pm: “When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood…” – MrJM - Jorge - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:05 pm: A trailer park in Loami. - anon - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:06 pm: The rich will be richer and the poor will be poor. You say you want a revolutionnnnnn, well, you know… - Anonymous - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:06 pm: Hopefully it will look like it did in early January 2015. - Cubs in '16 - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:07 pm: Rauner will have his own restaurant critique show on Food Network and will have given up all semblance of governin’. - Joe M - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:11 pm: Feb. 25, 2017 Cabinet meeting: Rauner: I am proud of you. We have done more with less! Honest Department Head: No, with less, we have done less. - sal-says - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:11 pm: IL will look like a third world country. Nearby states will be complaining uh (building walls?) to cut down on the inflow of IL refugees. Snark? Sure hope so. - Oswego Willy - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:13 pm: HBO - “Dad’s Home State” - Season 3, Episode 109 Bruce and his Troopers have their bicycles stolen again. Diana enjoys a 4th month in Florida. Diana’s state employee tries to get Diana to return to “The Sara Lee Governor’s Mansion” by March. Goldberg writes his 15th apology, breaks pencil, “ck” makes another million dollars selling candles on the side. Comedy, 58 minutes. - Jocko - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:14 pm: The capitol will become a frontier fort, with the surrounding countryside barren of timber. For two pelts, you can have an audience with Governor Rauner, clad in buckle shoes. - Losing My Edge - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:14 pm: I’m going to dial back some of the cynicism from this post and say it’ll look more like a Robocop movie. - nobody - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:14 pm: Somewhere over the rainbow Way up high And the dreams that you dreamed of Once in a lullaby Somewhere over the rainbow Blue birds fly And the dreams that you dreamed of Dreams really do come true ooh oh Someday I’ll wish upon a star Wake up where the clouds are far behind me Where trouble melts like lemon drops High above the chimney tops That’s where you’ll find me Oh, somewhere over the rainbow bluebirds fly And the dream that you dare to, Oh why, oh why can’t I? - Christopher - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:16 pm: On February 25, 2017, Springfield will be frozen (just like it is now). And Governor Rauner - having seen his shadow earlier in the month - will predict at least 6 more weeks of a budget impasse. - Ducky LaMoore - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:17 pm: The World Series Champion Cubs will have completed their first week of Spring Training! And Governor Evelyn Sanguinetti will host a fine cabinet meeting complete with cookies provided by former Comptroller Leslie Munger. - Enviro - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:17 pm: Pitchforks in the streets of Springfield - Motambe - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:20 pm: It will be a great year for candle sales in the Capitol, and state offices! Oh, until the candle companies’ invoices aren’t paid and they stop delivering. - Stones - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:21 pm: Maybe we’ll get lucky and get hit by an asteroid or something? - burbanite - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:23 pm: Gov standing alone on the vacant streets of springfield. A cough echoes. Suddenly, a voice, “I’m your huckleberry”. - Mouthy - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:23 pm: http://www.geardiary.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/hooverville.jpg - Anon. - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:23 pm: “It’s gonna be cold, it’s gonna be grey, and it’s gonna last you for the rest of your life.” Or at least until the 2018 election. - Disdale - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:24 pm: Rauner, telling agency leaders that they’ll be asked to do more with less. Agency Leaders: Please send this Les Moore guy over, we need all the help we can get. - Sangamo Sam - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:32 pm: The agency director’s offices will be filled with arrows looking like the aftermath of Little Big Horn. The Governor - channelling his inner Dean Wormer - will be sitting in his office atop 500 bags of money, smoking a nice Havana cigar, watching the smoke and wildfires out his window and smiling proudly at chaos and calamity below. - qualified somebody nobody sent - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:33 pm: Gov. Sanguinetti will be wishing Ambassador Rauner good luck in his new job in Austrailia in her state of the State address. Behind her John and Mike will be nodding their heads in unison echoing the new Gov.’s sentiments. - Anonymous - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:34 pm: Capitol Fax is just a series of open threads as there is nothing to report any more about Illinois govt. - Honeybear - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:34 pm: Totally forgot the 24 months remark. Twenty four months…that seems fairly specific. Mother of God, somebody in his administration (Arduin) gamed this out at 24 months of hell. I wonder what the updated figure would be given Madigans’ refusal to cave? - D.P.Gumby - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:36 pm: Brucie awakes from his coma and says “I was elected what!? I’m not qualified for that!!” - Gooner - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:36 pm: “President Trump’s nominee for Commerce Sec. told a Senate panel today that he has a few structural reforms that will be necessary before the Trump Administration proposes a budget for fiscal 2018.” - John A Logan - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:38 pm: Think Thunder Dome. - Get a Job!! - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:38 pm: Surely by February of 2017 we’ll be eating rainbow stew with a silver spoon underneath that sky of blue. We’ll all be drinking that free bubble up and eating that rainbow stew! - Earnest - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:38 pm: I finally understand it all. Rauner thought the work of being Governor didn’t start until the one-year anniversary of the election. I’m going to collect signatures to create an amendment to revise the oath of office to reflect that so we don’t have this happen again in the future. - Deep South - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:40 pm: Cairo, IL. Never been there? Well its…its…nowhere near pretty. - How Ironic - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:40 pm: Fallout 4. That’s what it’s going to look like. Wonder if the free motorcycle training classes will still be offered, or if the potholes will simply be too large? BTW Below Video is Safe For Work. It’s just intended for older viewers. Safe. For. Work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5aJfebzkrM - Norseman - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:42 pm: On Feb. 25, 2017, Rauner will announce the 3rd leaders meeting since Nov. 18, 2015 to negotiate the FY 2016 budget. On Feb. 25, 2017, Rauner will have an anniversary reception for the five original cabinet members to stay on since 2015. On Feb. 25, 2017, the public spokesman for LIERS (the consolidated Department of Lottery, Insurance, Employment, Revenue and Student Assistance) announced that it would not continue with the proposed project to print tax forms on toilet paper. Because the state has no postage money, it was LIERS’ hope that grocery stores would accept these forms and sell them to Illinois residents. Unfortunately, grocery chains crapped out on the plan. Therefore, all tax returns must be done on the web. On Feb. 25, 2017, STUPED (the consolidated State Police, Transportation, University Security and Emergency Management Department) has successfully sold the last of it’s idle gas driven vehicles. The money will be used to complete the acquisition of 10-speed bicycles for remaining officers. - zatoichi - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:42 pm: After doing less with less, the agency directors placed the arrows they have collected in the last several months on a table at the front of the room. Later the Gov could ‘take the arrows’ back to his office to show reporters how hard he has worked. - Homer J. Quinn - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:42 pm: due to budget cuts, February 2017 will end on the 19th. I’m sorry folks, the state is BROKE. we can’t afford to enjoy a complete February every year. - VanillaMan - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:43 pm: Former President Obama will be departing O’Hare Airport for his post-presidency in his home state of Hawaii after the Aloha state announces that it will build the presidential library Illinois struggles to approve any funding for. - ash - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:43 pm: Are you sure he didn’t tell them that they were winning and that their clients were running scared? - illinoised - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:44 pm: I’d bet BVR is walking with happy feet. He appears to be mighty proud of what he’s doing. I don’t believe for a second that he is sharing our pain about the present situation. He is making perfunctory comments that low information voters might believe. - VanillaMan - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:44 pm: In an attempt to keep the Obama Presidential Library in Illinois, Governor Bruce Rauner offers the former president the vacant Illinois Museum building in Springfield. - VanillaMan - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:49 pm: Michael J. Madigan buys Saputos. Rauner claims the move is an attempt to make the Governor look bad. In retaliation, Rauner buys Obed and Isaac’s, then strips down the brewery equipment, bocce ball courts, coffee shop and offers the now abandoned building to the Barack Obama Presidential Library Commission. - No Longer A Lurker - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:53 pm: Just like the movie, “Groundhog Day”. - Boone's is Back - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:55 pm: The Rapture but with snow - Keyrock - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:56 pm: Thousands are selling apples on the street. Speaker Madoga. Is buying. - Keyrock - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 1:57 pm: Madigan is buying. (darned, odd, spellcheck). - Keyrock - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 2:00 pm: The magic beans will have sprouted and grown, and the land will be covered with wonderful crops of all kinds. All of the money needed for every imaginable state service will have been raised by taxing raisins. - Hawkeye in Illinois - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 2:02 pm: As Happy Feet penguins, displaced by global climate change frolic on the Chicago shore of Lake Michigan, thousands of mothers and their young children that can no longer access daycare, huddle in “Raunervilles” under El tracks. - Wensicia - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 2:02 pm: All residential centers for the severely disabled and prisons are closed. Chicago is turned into a giant walled prison colony and residence for the disabled, mentally ill after forced into bankruptcy. “Escape From Chi-Raq” The Tribune Editorial Board is given offices in the Governor’s Mansion. Disappointed that he could not gain a Republican Majority in either house, Rauner now offers to compromise with Madigan on the budget. He’ll give the Democrats credit for tanking the state if Madigan accepts his Turnaround Agenda. Rauner does agree to raise taxes to cover the massive lawsuit settlement for Evelyn Sanguinetti’s accident. - Big Joe - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 2:05 pm: We will be back to bartering with Wampum. - AC - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 2:09 pm: The future will be as dark as the souls of all the commenters making apocalyptic predictions, like me, and I believe the future will look like a Charles Dickens novel. - walker - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 2:17 pm: Two years from now at a closed meeting with Republican legislators: “We’re winning. The Democrats are running scared. Just hang on a little longer.” - Streator Curmudgeon - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 2:26 pm: A boil-infested homeless man shuffles up to Rauner and rasps, “Don’t back down, Governor.” - Gooner - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 2:29 pm: After giant meteor strike Duluth in December causing widespread chaos, 2016, Trib editorial writer pens piece hoping for giant meteor to hit IL. - Carhartt Representative - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 2:29 pm: Blade Rauner - Rich Miller - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 2:32 pm: Gooner wins. - VanillaMan - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 2:35 pm: Bruce Rauner announces that Indiana has bought Illinois for $4,000,000,000, Missouri has agreed to pick up Metro-East St. Louis for $400,000 and free canoe rides on the Merrimack River, Wisconsin has leased Northeastern Illinois to convert into a Toxic Cheese Reserve which will be monitored by the Federal Government, Iowa has bought Western Illinois for $2,000,000 while allowing the counties to keep 10% of the corn crop value for the next twenty years, and Chicago will be permitted to become its own state, with the exception of the Northern Suburbs from O’Hare to Illinois Beach, which becomes a satellite enclave of The Caymans. Governor Rauner pockets $1,000,000,000 in finder fees, royalties and residuals, announces his retirement and flies to Montana. - Leeroye - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 2:35 pm: Tomorrow will look like today as much as autumn looks like spring, because that 24 month clock has yet to start ticking. But, even a broken clock is right twice a day, and by Ilinois stardards that’s pretty good. - Mama - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 2:36 pm: 1. All State agencies will be owned & re-named by Wall Street. The only state employees will be Rauner’s cabinet & super stars. All employees will be individual contractors. 2. All kids will go to a private charter school or be home schooled. 3. Only kids from wealthy families will go to college. 4. Retirees and the poor will only be able to eat three times a week. 5. Women with children will not be allowed to work outside of the home. - Mama - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 2:38 pm: Rauner and his Tea Party wants to turn the clock back to 1950! - Roscoe Tom - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 2:40 pm: Vanilla Man: Are you saying the Big Zero will be in the Big Sky State? (Be still our hearts!) - Mama - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 2:40 pm: “Gov. Bruce Rauner on Wednesday convened what was billed as the first meeting of his Cabinet, telling agency leaders that they’ll be asked to do more with less” It sounds like is Cabinet members won’t get a pay increase. - Skeptic - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 2:43 pm: “A trailer park in Loami.” Say what you will, but three tornadoes went through the greater Loami area in the 21st century, and not one of them hit the trailer park. To the post: I’m reminded of an insurance ad a few years ago where a guy is rushed to the emergency room because “he has money coming out the wazoo!” “Does he have insurance?” “Insurance?? He has money coming out the wazoo!” That’ll be Illinois. Maybe. - Oswego Willy - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 2:45 pm: - Gooner - Restaurant-Quality. - Mama - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 2:45 pm: There will be no more Dept. of Human Services (no social programs), State Board of Education or Higher Ed., Dept. of Ag or the Dept. of Natural Resources, etc.. No more public schools or universities, etc.. - Aldyth - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 2:47 pm: Snow will be covering the crash site at the state capitol. - Leeroye - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 2:50 pm: And Ilinoy can no longer afford superfluous consonats or vowels for that matter. Sell the diphthong! - Ghost - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 2:50 pm: it will look like france circa July 17,1789….. with Rauner standing in front of the capitol ready to offer cake to the masses - Mama - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 2:53 pm: ==”This is not going to be a happy feet year,” Rauner told the group of about 50 officials gathered in a Capitol meeting room. “This is going to be pretty rough, but we’re going to get through it.” == *Rauner passes a law to eliminate dancing. “And I tell you, in 24 months we’re going to be on a very different trajectory as a state.” *Translation: In 24 months, there will be no more Dems in IL. - AC - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 3:14 pm: “in 24 months we’re going to be on a very different trajectory as a state” Blowing things up does change their trajectory. - GA Watcher - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 3:22 pm: The Governor and his cabinet will have their second meeting of his term. - Bluegrass Boy - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 3:33 pm: Whatever Illinois looks like it will look like it from a distance for me. Hello retirement! - Just a guy - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 3:33 pm: I want boxes to check: funny funnier funniest - Empty Suit - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 3:49 pm: It will look like the day after the 24th - Flynn's Mom - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 3:50 pm: OW, that episode will be a classic! - ottawa otter - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 3:57 pm: February 25, 2017 you say. Very simple, easily solved, place the digits in squares, 0,2,2,5,2,0,1 and 7. Add them:19, multiply by the same number 19X19=361, add those, 3+6+1=10,add those 1+0=1, we will be precisely back at square one, simple mathematics. - forwhatitsworth - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 3:58 pm: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” or is it … “Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder”? - Austin Blvd - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 4:17 pm: Potterville. - South Central - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 5:25 pm: Well, I’m not certain what illinois will look like then, but I already hear the music from the Twilight Zone starting up. I hear Rod Serling’s voice… - FormerParatrooper - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 7:26 pm: Feb. 25, 2017 … The UN and Jimmy Carter are in Springfield to hold high level talks and negotiations between the Democrats, Republicans and the Governor. VP Biden makes a call for a 3 State solution to the Illinois problem. CapitolFax becomes the go to source of national news outlets to understand the Illinois quandary. Several commentators on CapitolFax make pleas for the outside media no to refer to Illinois as Illinoise. - Tucker - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 7:48 pm: Nobody @ 1:14 Years ago I was part of a response team to the suicide of a 10 year old girl who had hung herself in her bedroom; will never, ever forget her mom and dad and then in some strange, karmic way, this song came on NPR as I drove home. These deaths, this sadness, this song will be on you Governor. - RNUG - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 9:06 pm: It will look like the south-west side of Springfield did in March 2006 after the twin tornadoes. - Gooner - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 9:21 pm: Clark St. finally reopens as Chicago Cubs World Series Champs celebration comes to end. - quincy - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 9:29 pm: Recall Day One Amen He’s Gone - XDNR - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 9:42 pm: Gov. Bruce Rauner on Wednesday March 2016 convened what was billed as the second meeting of his Cabinet from his bunker in Capitol, telling agency leaders that we are now in an “apocalyptic state” (Madigan’s fault) and they’ll be asked to do more with nothing, but be aware of any unionized zombies within your “locked down” facilities. Then starts dancing to the Pharrel Williams song “Happy” that is being broadcast thru National Gaurd and IEMA command centers around the state. (As a side note WI, IA, MO and IN are taking in refugees, WI is overwhelmed with people coming from the the Chicago metro area). - lost in the weeds - Thursday, Nov 5, 15 @ 9:44 pm: Too Long in the Wasteland, becomes the song of the Illinois Territory. President Trump selects Ivanka to be Governor of the Illinois Territory. Trump buys the Springfield Hilton, because it is symbolic of what happened to the State of Illinois. - NewWestSuburbanGOP'er - Friday, Nov 6, 15 @ 7:53 am: The voters of Illinois finally realize they have elected the “Manchurian Candidate”. - Anonymous - Friday, Nov 6, 15 @ 8:43 am: Feb. 1 2017, Gov.Rauner and Rep. Madigan announce a special meeting for legisative leaders to try to find a compromise to finally pass a FY 2016 budget. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.