By Steve Rhodes
To me the real point of these unemployment charts featured by Rich Miller on his Capitol Fax Blog this morning is the remarkable degree to which state – and I dare say local – economies are tied to the fortune’s of the national (and as we’ve been seeing in recent years, global) economy.
In the 90s there were an awful lot of genius governors and mayors deemed rising stars who were somehow so much smarter than their 80s counterparts. Now, not so much. Get it?
So while sleazy governing and mismanagement in Springfield have certainly exacerbated the problems with our state economy, they are not the direct cause. For that, we can blame Washington and Wall Street. And after three years, a certain former Illinois legislator whose slight experience here learning how to vote present hardly prepared him to lead a world power.
Which is not to say that Republican leaders have been offering anything better. Contrary to their nonstop rhetoric, government bloat is hardly the cause of our problems either.
Illinois, for example, has fewer state employees per capita than any other state.
The City of Chicago says it “the fewest number of positions in more than decade, and 10,000 fewer than there were in 2000” – and I believe them.
We had a cataclysmic economic event in this country – around the globe, really – and yet Republicans want to blame our fiscal crisis on the president’s (admittedly lame) recovery efforts and Democrats are afraid of being exposed as complicit in Wall Street shenanigans as well as blaming the financial community no matter how much they deserve it.
A plea for fairness? Please. And it’s way too late for this and Tim Geithner will probably just slow-walk it anyway. That ship has sailed – and Obama did the christening.
* Obama Prosecuting Fewer Financial Crimes Than Under Reagan Or Either Bush.
* Why No Financial Prosecutions? “It’s Just Too Hard.”
* Obama Policy Of Covering Up For Elite Financial Criminals.
* Obama On Verge Of Horrible Bank Mortgage Fraud Settlement Deal.
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But hey, at least he’s a constitutional scholar.
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Well, at least he’s repaying the media for all the love it’s bestowed on him.
* Obama’s War On Whistle Blowers.
* “The prosecution of Mr. Kiriakou is the sixth criminal case brought under President Obama against current or former government officials accused of providing classified information to the media, more such cases than all previous presidents combined.”
Vote for that? Never.
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“Is he the lesser of two evils?” Conors Friedersdorf writes for the Atlantic. “Maybe so. But lauding him as a president who has governed ‘with grace and calm’ and ‘who as yet has not had a single significant scandal to his name’? If indefinite detention, secret kill lists, warrantless spying, a war on whistleblowers, violating the War Powers Resolution, and abuse of the state secrets privilege don’t fit one’s definition of ‘scandal,’ what does? If they’re peripheral flaws rather than central, unacceptable transgressions, America is doomed to these radical, illiberal policies for the foreseeable future.”
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“These are bigger issues than any election.”
Media Madness
* The reporting characterizations of the Los Angeles Times’ David Lauter now represent the official perspective of all Tribune Company newspapers due to budget cuts that eliminated the redundancies of independent reportorial thought.
* The Sun-Times relies on the same story published today in small town newspapers across the country by going with AP; in the suburbs they pretend “reaction” is news.
Fact-Checks
* USA Today
* ABC News
* FOX News
* FactCheck.org
* Washington Post
* AP
Chicago Po-Po Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Badges
Preparing for G8/NATO.
Air Jordan Retro Chicago 10s Have Dropped
And the (video) reviews are coming in.
How Awesome Was The Chimp Channel
Pretty damn awesome.
That Really Grinds Rich Munnich’s Gears
Snowbound with carrots and muffin mix.
Adam Clayton Bass Arrives In Chicago
Only three notes played!
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Getting stronger.
Posted on January 25, 2012