Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. should appologize to eastern Will County

Jesse Jackson, Jr.'s original congressional photo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sympathy has begun to build for Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., who is being treated at Mayo Clinic for a bipolar disorder--we are told.

Jackson had been virtually missing from view for weeks until it was finally learned that he had a serious medical condition that required him to stay in the hospital.

According to news accounts., he has had visits, not only from members of his family, but also former Congressman Patrick Kennedy and U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich. Each indicated that Jackson has a ways to go before returning to work, if he does return to work.

For what is now adding up to months, Jackson has been absent from the U.S. Congress. For the first several weeks, it was unknown just where and why he was gone. Wild speculation about rehab from drugs and alcohol, running off to a mistress, and other sordid explanations were rampant; they were all denied by family members.

Apparently Jackson is suffering from severe depression associated with his condition.

Illinois State Capitol
(Photo credit: J. Stephen Conn)

I can only wonder. Does Jackson's depression have anything to do with guilt about his behavior toward the innocent landowners in eastern Will County--the same folks which he has targeted for years. Following in a path laid out by his predecessors, Jackson tread on the people of eastern Will County as he pursued a pathetic idea--a third Chicagoland airport--that had been rattling around the Illinois General Assembly, in real estate circles, and in the leadership of the south suburbs since the 1960's. Jackson made it his own. It is unclear whether he believed the things he said about the vast economic potential of the project or if he simply was playing a role similar to that of a used car salesman or sleazy televangelist.

Either way, Jackson placed his own potential political spotlight far above the innocent people forced to deal with his political games. He wasn't even accountable to them until he convinced the Illinois General Assembly to right the wrong he did. When the legislative maps were redrawn, Jackson finally became the congressman of the district that included the airport footprint. Even before he got that done, Jackson played with the innocent people of eastern Will County as though they were merely the pawns in his life-altering chess game.

Most people would be conflicted by trying to better themselves at the expense of hundreds and perhaps thousands of innocent people. Perhaps Jackson really knows that his efforts to build a South Suburban Airport are futile and that the project itself is unnecessary.

I'd like to think that what he has done to people that were completely undeserving of his assault, has caused him angst. His accountability would humanize him.

Jackson has staked his entire political career on this one big issue. Who knows what might have occurred, had he pursued other, perhaps smaller, but more achievable projects?

An airport is the ultimate. The model of O'Hare International Airport, if duplicated, could be the one big development that would satisfy any politician's dreams. Starry-eyed at best, any objective view will show that O'Hare in the 1960's will not / can not be duplicated. That was a one-time bonanza, never to be repeated.

I'm sorry. I don't want to see anyone suffer. I feel empathy for my fellow human beings. Perhaps that explains why I got involved in the State of Illinois' battle to take private land for an unproven publics works project in the first place. The more I became educated about the lunacy of pursuing the building of another airport in the 1980's, the more suffering I have seen at the hand of state and local government. There has been untold suffering.

Perhaps this hospital stay is a good time for Jackson to take account--to consider all of the things he could have done--rather than pursuing the development of an unneeded airport. He should think about the harm he has caused to innocent people, their families, and their neighborhoods. Most of the damage was done before Jackson even represented the people of eastern Will County. Now he is their congressman. He should make amends, apologize to them. He should leave them alone, and stop beating the dead horse that is the Peotone Airport.

George Ryan's appeal denied by federal court

        Ex-Illinois Governor George RyanDespite his lawyer's best efforts, George Ryan, Illinois' disgraced governor, serving a 6 1/2 year sentence in federal prison, will not be leaving jail before next July when his sentence is concluded.

Ryan's lawyers, led by another former governor--James Thompson--filed an appeal based on the Supreme Court's ruling last year on the "honest services" laws. The laws, as applied to public officials holds that a public official stands in a fiduciary relationship with the public. Honest services fraud is committed by breaching those fiduciary duties in the course of that relationship. The laws relate to theft, accepting a bribe, or concealing a financial conflict of interest. In 2010 the court narrowed the fraud to bribery and kickback schemes.

Appealing Ryan's conviction was a long shot at best, and it is the last in a series of extraordinary efforts to keep Ryan out of jail. The legal wrangling commenced as soon as he was convicted in 2006.

To see more stories related to George Ryan, just type his name into the search engine at right!

Setting the record straight--the South Suburban Airport has NOT been approved by the FAA

Contrary to what has been printed in The BlackList Pub, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has NOT approved the building of a South Suburban Airport. The project will likely never be built, despite recent misinformation from IDOT Aeronautics Director Susan Shea and reported in Chicago newspapers.

TheBlackList Pub

For All Points-Of-The-View.


The following is the first sentence of a post in The BlackList Pub entitled, "Congressman Jackson Work Ignored As IDOT and FAA confirm south suburban airport WILL be built!"

"During Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr's medical leave and stories about his legislative record and November elections, The Sun Times and other local and national media have went to great lengths examining the impact of his legacy, so I found it interesting how The Sun Times and other media recently ran an extensive story featuring a top IDOT official confirming that the FAA is indeed approved the building of a South Suburban Airport with absolutely no mention of Congressman Jackson," writes Mark S. Allen, the author of a post in The BlackList Pub, which I assume is a blog serving Chicago's black community.

The tone of the article is the writers' frustration that Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. is being ignored for all his hard work on the proposed airport.

While Jesse Jackson, Jr.'s hard work is debatable in itself, a bigger problem is that the writer assumed what he read in the Chicago Sun Times, (see below) recently to be accurate information. It was not!

Fact is, the proposed airport--the Peotone Airport--has NOT been approved by the FAA as The BlackList Pub reported.

The misunderstanding came when IDOT Aeronautics Director Susan Shea reported erroneous information to attendees of an economic forum whose members happen to be rabidly in favor of the project. A Southtown Star reporter simply quoted Shea in a story without verifying the truth to her statements. The story was picked up by the Chicago Sun Times, which owns the Southtown Star. The result was a second story refuting the first. The second story quoted IDOT spokesman Guy Tridgell when he explained that FAA approval is a long way off. Ironically Tridgell is a former transportation reporter for the Southtown Star.

Read the complete explanation here.

Watching the process of a third airport during the past 27 years, I've seen much of this misinformation passed along from person to person like an old-fashioned game of Telephone--you know--where one person tells another person something and they tell another, and so on, always embellishing the story along the way.

That is what has happened here. It might explain why the project didn't end years ago. Rumors, lies, and innuendos have kept propping it up. Thank goodness the Internet allows a better accounting of who says what and to whom.

All the while, the people who live in the vicinity of this proposed airport continue to be victims of all those lies and innuendos, usually at the hand of government officials and their employees.

Mr. Allen should write a retraction in his publication stating that the proposed airport has not been approved by the FAA.

Chicago Sun Times shows how bad news travels fast; wrong news travels faster!

              Chicago Sun Times 
Two of the many things that are wrong with journalism today is a total disregard for correctness and a new ambivalence toward an informed public!

Both examples were evident when the Chicago Sun Times attempted to report on the Peotone Airport.

Steve Metsch, a Sun-Times Media reporter, who writes for the Southtown/Star, which is owned by the Chicago Sun Times, covered a meeting Friday, July 27, of at the Chicago Southland Economic Development Corp. The resulting story was entitled, "Top IDOT official says third airport will be built."

He quoted Susan Shea, IDOT Director, Division of Aeronautics when she said, "To the naysayers, this is it. The FAA would not tell us this is the preferred place. This is where it's going to be," Shea said. "...I's going to be such an economic engine for the community out there, for the state. It is going to happen. It's just a matter of when. It's not a matter anymore of if."

The proposed airport being decidedly imminent would be pretty big news since it is a project that has been languishing on the IDOT radar screen for more than 27 years, if it were true.

Trouble is, it isn't true, as evidenced by Monday's story in the Chicago Sun Times refuting it entitled, "Despite report, Peotone Airport isn't a done deal yet."

Because the Peotone Airport has long been a hot topic, any news about it is often picked up by other media outlets across the country. The Peotone Airport is a national story, mostly because with a negative spin, such as its receiving the Golden Fleece Award, one which highlights government's wasteful spending. The Peotone Airport has been compared with IDOT's other failed accomplishments, the downstate Mid-America Airport, which has sat virtually empty for years.

If the story Shea tried to tell was true, it isn't hard to imagine that the initial story would have news value. That explains why it was picked up by Chicago TV news, and in local papers across the state. I saw it online at Yahoo News!

Trouble is, the initial story was picked up. The retraction was not.

This situation isn't new. IDOT has been counting on the media to do their public relations work for their pet project since a new airport was envisioned in 1985.

That is why opponents have had an uphill battle trying to fight the project. Despite having truth on their side and the project having a lack of merit, it is difficult to compete with a well-oiled public relations machine. The government uses the media every chance it gets.

Related articles

• Top IDOT Official Says Third Airport Will Be Built
• IDOT: Despite Report, Peotone Airport Isn't A Done Deal Yet

Gun debate goes on and on and on...

AURORA, CO - JULY 23: Two daughters of movie-theater-shooting-victim Gordon Cowden's embrace one another at the makeshift memorial built across the street from the Century 16 theater July 23, 2012 in Aurora, Colorado. Two of Cowden's teenage daughters were with him in the theater when he was killed. Twenty-four-year-old James Holmes is suspected of killing 12 and injuring 58 others Friday during a shooting rampage at a screening of 'The Dark Knight Rises.' (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

What happened last weekend in Aurora, Colorado was everyone's worst nightmare. Like most others who have watched the details of the tragedy unfold, I thought about how I have been going to movies all my life. It has always been a relaxing, enjoyable, peaceful experience. Never in my wildest dreams could I imagine that someone could walk up and down the aisles shooting innocent people.

That kind of horror often plays out in movie theaters, but on the screen, not in the audience. I cannot imagine what it must be like to live through such horrific violence, or what would be worse to die because of it.

Turning an American iconic activity into a bloody horror has enraged me. But I am even more horrified that so many people refuse to place any kind of blame on the relative ease of this 24-year old killer to obtain weapons of mass destruction. We went to war with a country over such a thing! But so many people, the very people that condoned the unjust war in Iraq that was based on lies by the George W. Bush administration, defend the right to own semi-automatic weapons and magazines that hold hundreds of shots. Their argument is based on self defense. I have to ask what is wrong with these people?

A quick Internet search of the subject, revealed multiple sources that make the claim, "more guns, less crime." In fact, that is the title of a book written by John Lott. The NRA has embraced his work and in the summer of 2003 recommended the book and its analysis to then Attorney General John Ashcroft in a letter signed by 18 state attorneys general. They sang the praises of Ashcroft's position on the Second Amendment. And so it goes...

I can't help but remain skeptical because it only seems to me that violence is much more a part of life today than it has ever been before. In my unskilled, unstudied opinion, guns seem to be at the very heart of it. Never before has this country seen the kinds of mass killings that we are seeing on a seemingly regular basis. Shootings resulting in multiple deaths have occurred in fast food joints, the workplace, college campuses, elementary and high schools, shopping malls and now at movie theaters.
A little further research revealed a working paper written by Mark Duggan from the National Bureau of Economic Research at Cambridge, Massachusetts, who looked into the relationship of guns and crime. His paper was entitled: "More Guns More Crime." At the time of his research, Mark was a student at the University of Chicago in the Dept. of Economics.

His paper http://www.nber.org/papers/w7967 was an in-depth analysis--than a cursory Google search. Those first results were obvious bias sources. One article on Google can be recreated literally hundreds of times by different sources. Such is the case with gun advocates.

Duggan noted his paper one item that stood out for me. He said he used statistics from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) because the NCHS data gave a more accurate source of homicide data than the FBI. He noted that between five and eight-percent of homicides are not reported in the FBI state-level data each year.

Another paper published by Ian Ayres and John J. Donohue III is entitled, "Shooting Down the More Guns, Less Crime Hypothesis." http://www.nber.org/papers/w9336, students at Yale and Stanford respectively.

"While certain facially plausible statistical models appear to generate this conclusion, (Lott's book "More Guns Less Crime") more refined analyses of more recent state and county data undermine the more guns, less crime hypothesis," said Ayres and Donohue III.

Donahue also wrote, "The latest misfires in support of the 'More Guns, Less Crime' hypothesis," in the Stanford Law Review, 2003.

The discussion has gone on for years, with no resolution. Fire power is getting faster and more lethal while political leaders continue to back away from the very subject. Who can blame them? The country is as divided about guns as it is on a host of other topics, especially in this election year.

So, the argument between gun and non-gun advocates continues, while more and more potential future victims of gun violence go about their happy lives. Potential killers keep going to gun stores and ordering their Glocks on the Internet. One day the two will meet. Bang, somebody will be dead!

Jesse Jackson, Jr. out of touch

U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson

The Rev. Jesse Jackson told NBC Chicago today that his son was slowly regaining his strength.

"Worse than we thought it was at first," was how Jackson categorized his son's unknown ailment. When asked what the problem is, Jackson said it was "inappropriate" to comment on what is wrong with his son.

That is exactly the opposite of what Illinois' senior senator--U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin--had to say.

U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin

In a recent statement at a city event, Durbin expressed that as a public official Jackson has a responsibility to tell the public what is going on.

"If there is some medical necessity for him not to say more at this moment then I will defer to that," Durbin said, but added that Jackson will soon have to report on what it is he is struggling with.

A press release from Jackson's office merely said he had checked himself into a medical in-care facility to deal with "physical and emotional ailments." Both Jackson's father and his wife,  a Chicago alderman have refused to provide any detail as to what Jackson's ailment really is.

Jackson has now been on medical leave for a month.

During a similar time frame that Jackson disappeared from public view, Jackson's fundraiser pal--Raghuveer Nayak--was arrested by federal authorities in connection with allegedly unscrupulous business practices. Nayak became known during the Blagojevich scandal when Nayak was said to have made an offer on Jackson's behalf to purchase the open U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama.

Jackson's attorneys say his disappearance is not connected to Nayak's arrest.

The only thing that is certain about Jesse Jackson, Jr. is that he is not among the most adored public officials.

The comments section of news stories written about his alleged illness is riddled with allegations, innuendos, and flat out attacks against him. According to the many negative statements, few believe that he is recovering from an illness or that his absence is unrelated to an ongoing House Ethics Committee investigation into his alleged attempt to buy a senate seat .

Editorials have been written about how Jackson owes answers to the people who hired him.

I couldn't agree more.

Related article

• Jesse Jackson Jr. in hiding

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Goodbye CNN!

U.S. Supreme Court building. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I remember a time when CNN was my go-to source for information. I felt that like it is advertised, CNN was the most trusted name in news.

No more. Yesterday, on one of the biggest political news stories--the U.S. Supreme court ruling on the Affordable Care Act--CNN got it wrong, horribly wrong.

I recall another time when the stakes were even higher that CNN got it wrong. It was in 2008 when CNN and several other news outlets reported, "Al Gore wins Florida," another story where the public was misled. We had to rely on time and hindsight for the real facts behind this convoluted truth.