Fletcher Farrar

Watching Gov. Bruce Rauner flailing about trying to save face while Democrat leaders refuse to play Turnaround call to mind Chicagoan Finley Peter Dunne’s 1895 quote, “Politics ain’t bean-bag.” Politics is a complex and sophisticated game, in other words, and those who aren’t good at it can do a lot of harm. Contrary to all […]

 As Gov. Bruce Rauner and the Illinois General Assembly get closer to a deal to bail out Exelon’s money-losing nuclear power plants, there is not a peep heard in the Prairie State about the dangers of nuclear power. As the world was reminded by Fukushima in 2011, accidents can release deadly radiation, poisoning the environment. […]

AFSCME members have good reason to be bereaved, since it looks like they could soon be bereft of pay raises and affordable health insurance, along with the opportunity to collectively bargain for a new contract with the state. But the bereavement leave implemented by the Rauner administration applies only in the case of the death […]

 Who in Illinois has time to worry about Donald Trump when we have Gov. Bruce Rauner? Now that the inconclusive state election is over, everybody is back in Springfield still stymied by Rauner’s insistence on  his non-budget “Turnaround agenda,” which keeps changing. At the same time, the governor continues trying to force a strike by […]

Some of us who worried that Donald Trump if he lost might not concede now have our own concession speeches to write. Congratulations to Mr. Trump and his supporters who are pleased to have taken their country back, to make it great again. There is good for the country in having the angry and out […]

Take a look at the architectural rendering on p. 17. It shows the old YWCA building preserved as part of the redevelopment of that entire block, old mixed with new, and a public park space on the southwest corner of the block where the Town Branch sewer poses development problems. The $7-9 million estimate for […]

Here we present the Best of Springfield edition, our annual celebration of what in Springfield is good and true. And popular. This is a reader poll, remember, so we don’t agree with all the choices, and you won’t either. Agree or not, there is a lot of goodness here – interesting food, hardworking and successful […]

 As a 15-year-old I read Conscience of a Conservative and became a proud supporter of Barry Goldwater, the Republican presidential candidate. I couldn’t understand why he got beaten up so badly in the media for his, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice,” because he meant to promote liberty, not extremism. Goldwater was […]

Americans discouraged by the presidential campaign should read President Barack Obama’s essay, “The way ahead,” in the latest issue of The Economist. “Why have some on the far left and even more on the rar right embraced a crude populism that promises a return to a past that is not possible to restore – and […]

As you’ll read in Patrick Yeagle’s cover story this week, Springfield is the capital of video gambling in Illinois. It has the most establishments offering video gambling – 176 – of any city, and the most terminals – 576. In the four years that video gambling has been legal, Springfield gamblers have lost $80 million […]

 If you haven’t voted yet, it’s time to get to the poll and make your voice heard. There are great candidates on the ballot in every category. The super-enthused electorate, happy not angry, has already turned out in record numbers, knowing that even if their favorite candidate doesn’t win, this will still be the best […]

Sangamon County is eerily quiet during this election campaign. True, Illinois as a blue state isn’t in play for the presidential election, so that cuts us out of a lot of hoopla. But what about the area state representative races, where the three incumbents running were all hand-picked by Gov. Bruce Rauner, supposedly the most […]