Posted on 10/29/2018 5:59:43 AM PDT by Kaslin
Last week, I became so distracted watching the flocks of pigs soaring through the clouds overhead that I nearly missed the Chicago Tribune report, headlined “Bill Daley, whose brother and father ran Chicago for 43 years, backs a term limit for mayor.”
It is no surprise that this latest Daley launched his bid for the next mayoral election, which will be held in February. What is surprising is the term limits biz.
“I think eight years is enough for a chief executive . . .” he told the Tribune. “Whether you’re doing a good job or bad job, I just think it’s a good thing to do and Chicago is one of the rare exceptions of major cities that doesn’t have a term limit, and I think those cities have done well and I think our politics will do well by that, quite frankly.”
But what about the long tenures of his father, Richard J. Daley, who died in office after 21 consecutive years, and his brother, Richard M. Daley, who served even longer?
“[F]or me, in 2019,” Bill Daley demurred, “I believe there ought to be term limits for mayor of Chicago.”
In addition to term limits, Mr. Daley unveiled a pretty comprehensive ethics platform, banning “family members from lobbying or doing business with the city” as well as prohibiting “campaign contributions from city lobbyists.” He pledged not to do any fundraising for himself during his first three years in office and to establish “an independent commission to draw new ward boundaries after the 2020 census instead of letting powerful aldermen control the process as they do now.”
“These needed steps,” Daley argued, “can help rebuild trust with the public and reassure people that the practices of the past will no longer be tolerated.”
Speaking of the past, when Bill’s father was mayor and accused of awarding city contracts to benefit his sons, his father famously questioned, “If a man can’t put his arms around his sons, then what kind of world are we living in?”
How about a less corrupt world?
Unfortunately, Chicago is the recognized capital of corruption. No matter how much voters there want reform, politicians squelch it. After former Democratic Governor Pat Quinn organized a petition drive to place term limits on the ballot for citizens to decide, the crooked city council placed three non-binding issues on their ballot and declared there was no room left for Quinn’s term limits measure.
People in power are often quite iffy about checks on power. This can be seen worldwide. Term limits play a critical role in preventing dictatorship in third world countries struggling with (and against) democracy.
That’s why none other than former President Barack Obama, who rarely if ever spoke about the need for term limits here in the U.S., often inveighed against crooked African politicians breaking established limits.
“Nobody should be president for life,” Obama proclaimed before the African Union in 2015. “Your country is better off if you have new blood and new ideas.”
Even China’s Communist Party recognized the importance of term limits, enacting limits after the epoch of one-man rule under Chairman Mao Zedong. When just last year those term limits were abandoned for President Xi Jinping, throughout the world folks worried it signaled further hits to personal freedom for nearly 1.4 billion people.
On social media, one Chinese citizen responded, “Argh, we’re going to become North Korea.” Of course, his comment was soon removed by government censors.
Freedom House’s 2018 report, “Freedom in the World,” titles their section on the Americas: “Gains and declines show value of electoral turnover.”
Electoral turnover — you know, like provided by term limits — appears strongly linked to freedom. Their report recognizes the benefits to freedom in Ecuador, where the new president is seeking to restore the term limits overridden by the past leader. Freedom House also noted the disaster befalling Bolivia, where “the constitutional court . . . struck down term limits that would have prevented incumbent leader Evo Morales from seeking reelection. Voters had rejected the lifting of term limits in a 2016 referendum, and international observers called the court’s reasoning a distortion of human rights law.
There would be term limits for every city, county, and state, and the Congress of the United States, if only the people were permitted to vote on the matter. But resistance by insiders remains strong, and is often quite effective.
We see the resistance in the current Chicago mayoral race. It turns out that Bill Daley also supports term limits for Chicago alderman. Not coincidentally, 14th Ward Alderman Edward Burke, the powerful chairman of the city’s Finance Committee and no less than a 50-year incumbent, to suggest that someone else would make a better qualified mayor.
Describing that 50-year stint in office as “a little ridiculous,” Daley dared to express some common-sense incredulity: “I’m just saying 50 years, half a century, really?”
American voters everywhere — including in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles as well as in rural states like Wyoming and Montana — fervently want term limits.
This includes a clear majority of every race, both sexes, all age groups, all parties, all political persuasions . . . except, perhaps, the most boutique demographic group. Such as most politicians.>Worldwide, the general reaction to legislators’ and presidents’ self-serving opposition to term limits echoes Daley’s: Really?
What a strange title.
Is the Wookiee in town ?
Ok. I give up. Where’s the part about the UFO over Chicago?
CHICAGO – The Nation of Islam, long known for its promotion of black nationalism and self-reliance, now is calling attention to another core belief that perhaps isn’t so well-known: the existence of UFOs.
When thousands of followers gather in suburban Chicago this weekend for the group’s annual Saviours’ Day convention, one of the main events will include a panel of scientists discussing worldwide UFO sightings, which they claim are on the rise.
The idea of seeking the divine in the skies is deeply rooted in the Chicago-based Nation of Islam, whose late leader Elijah Muhammad detailed in speeches and writings a massive hovering object loaded with weapons he called “The Mother Plane” — although religion experts, Nation of Islam leaders and believers offer very different interpretations of what exactly happens aboard the plane, its role or how it fits into religious teachings.
https://www.foxnews.com/science/farrakhans-nation-of-islam-to-argue-ufos-are-real
"The idea of seeking the divine in the skies is deeply rooted in the Chicago-
based Nation of Islam, whose late leader Elijah Muhammad detailed in
speeches and writings a massive hovering object loaded with weapons he
called “The Mother Plane”"
The author was suggesting “when pigs fly”. He is taking the Daleys at face value. Bill is trying to get the votes of those who are nostalgic for the Ruchie Daley days and also present himself as a reformer. Once in, he can say that the needs of 2027 are different than the needs of 2019. Or he can flee a burning ship like Richie Jr did. Win Win.
What should be an issue are the way Chicago’s established neighborhoods having a cohesive identity who’s ward boundaries, county and state legislative and congressional districts have been cut up. Citizens in those neighborhoods like: Bridgeport (11th), Back of The Yards (14th), McKinley Park,Brighton Park (12th), Archer heights, Garfield Ridge, and Clearing (23rd), Particularly on the city’s southwest side now have to deal with two or three aldermen to deal with a need if a local issue comes up.
Aldermen for example act like mayors of that given area and have some control over city services such as streets and sanitation as well as zoning. Now must deal with needs of sections of small business located on a main street which were an integral part of another ward.
This has resulted in one way streets changing to two way as they continue through a given area and garbage pickup delayed services which has created rodent problems.
One such example of this is the 14th ward run by Edmund Burke. The 14th was located in an area roughly bounded N&S by 39th st to the north side of 55th st Wentworth on the east and Damen on the west. TOday that ward has key sections of the all those communities mentioned.
I saw something in the sky one morning a few years back, a streak that lingered for a while, like some kind of fighter jet made it. It was quite visible. I checked twitter and no one said anything about it.
As for the Mayoral election. STOP PRICKWANKLE!!!! I think Paul Vallas might be the one to do it.
Daley? Ugh, I’d take him over Prickwankle though.
Kayne endorsed some pinko community activist.
Is Vallas more conservative than William Kelly? I thought that Kelly was the most conservative candidate, in that race.
“I saw something in the sky one morning a few years back...”
Pics or bs. :)
Of course not! Vallas is a democrat. But Kelly has a zero% chance of being elected. IF he is actually on the ballot I will vote for him in the first round IF my vote is not needed to help the least bad viable option make the runoff, but I'm not gonna pretend he's the next Mayor.
I think I did take a pic with my crappy flip-phone at the time. It was just a jet stream, but I wondered what caused it, there was nothing was in the news about practicing for the air show or whatever.
Were you intaking massive amounts of soy and avocados at that time?
Maybe Comtrex.
That’s it then.
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