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. […]
Editor’s Note
Posted inOpinion
The Koch connection
Tug on any right-wing thread in America and you’ll most likely find that it’s tied to the multi-billionaire Koch boys, Charles and David. While the brothers are infamous for funneling hundreds of millions of campaign dollars to presidential, congressional and gubernatorial politicos willing to embrace their self-serving agenda, few know of their equally self-serving push […]
Posted inOpinion
Editor’s note 11/24/16
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 […]
Posted inOpinion
Takeaways from the election
Buckle up, friends. It’s going to be a hairy ride. Start with Day One for President Trump (gotta get used to saying that). He will need to be up-and-at-’em no later than 12:01 a.m., for during his campaign he promised to get oodles of big stuff done on his very first day in office, such as […]
Posted inOpinion
Editor’s note 11/17/16
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 […]
Posted inOpinion
Why we should reach across borders
A nation’s border is nothing in and of itself. It’s just an inanimate line on a map, in the dirt, on a riverbank. It has no philosophy, personality, feelings or meaning – beyond what people on either side attribute to it. Unfortunately, thanks to Donnie Trump’s xenophobic demagoguery in this presidential election, America finds itself […]
Posted inOpinion
Editor’s note 11/10/16
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 […]
Posted inOpinion
The Cannon Ball saga
The Dakota Access Pipeline is a massive 1,172-mile-long pipeline being constructed by Energy Transfer Partners. It will cut through North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois. This pipeline, owned by oilman Kelcy Warren, crosses 200 rivers and countless farms, and it cuts through the ancestral lands and burial grounds of the tribe. DAPL risks economic […]
Posted inOpinion
Editor’s note 11/3/16
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 […]
Posted inOpinion
A tale of two pipes
A dramatic new chapter is unfolding this year in a volatile confrontation on a remote stretch of the northern Plains in rural North Dakota. It’s a “Battle of Two Pipes,” pitting the cultural power symbolized by the Native American peace pipe against the bruising financial power of a giant pipeline owned by Energy Transfer Partners. […]
Posted inOpinion
Editor’s note 10/27/16
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 […]
Posted inOpinion
The ethical rot of Wells Fargo
Just when you thought that Big Banker greed surely bottomed out with 2008’s Wall Street crash and bailout, along comes Wells Fargo, burrowing even deeper into the ethical slime to reach a previously unimaginable level of corporate depravity. It’s one thing for these giants of finance to cook the books or defraud investors, but top […]
