Second Thoughts

 Donald Trump’s bluster about penalizing “sanctuary cities” such as Chicago by withholding federal funds that have nowt to do with immigration is based on his assertion that such cities violate federal statute 8 U.S.C. § 1373(a).  Except they don’t, as Nikolas Bowie, Berger-Howe Legal History Fellow at Harvard Law School, makes clear in a recent post on the excellent new […]

The antics of Congressional Republicans trying to vandalize the Affordable Care Act are outside my brief here at Illinois Times, except to the extent that they threaten to do harm to Illinoisans. Happily, Illinois Issues‘ Kristy Kennedy has written the piece I haven’t had the time or space to write, and done it better.  Among […]

 In “The hog and I” (April 20, 2017) I recalled a magazine article I wrote in 1982 about the hog industry. It was a fun piece, but the information in it is badly dated; the funniest bit is where I report that worries about the health effects of animal fats, and salt and preservatives used in […]

 In  “Historic omissions” (April 6, 2017) I praised Carlinville’s John M. Palmer as a memoirist. He published his Perrsonal Recollections: The Story of an Earnest Life (Robert Clarke Company, Cincinnati) in 1901. These days it’s hard to come by. It is in the collections of the Illinois State Library, Brookens Library out at UIS and […]

The piece about the Springfield Redbirds that appeared in the paper on March 23, 2017, was shortened by rain, so to speak. Readers interested in the complete version will find it here, as it appeared in our paper of Sept. 1, 1978. Unusually, it was not published as part of my Prejudice series but as […]

 A skeptical reader wondered how the Trumpish crackdown on unpapered immigrants might hurt Illinois agriculture, as I argued it would in “Absolutely ridiculous.” More than 70 percent of the farm workers in Illinois may be immigrants, and many of those can be assumed to be undocumented, but how many people can that mean? Migrants aren’t needed to […]

 You really ought to go see “Shifting Sands: Springfield’s Architectural Legacy, Part 2,” a photographic portrait of a changing Springfield. Co-curated by the excellent Erika Holst, a regular contributor to these pages, and Curtis Mann of Lincoln’s Library’s Sangamon Valley Collection, the exhibit will be up at the Springfield Art Association, 700 N. Fourth St. […]

The current Atlantic Monthly, staff writer David A. Graham, explores an issue that I’ve addressed from time to time in an Illinois context — that the real division in the U.S. is not between black and white, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, but between city and countryside. That became vividly clear in the presidential election when, […]

 In this week’s column I wondered out loud about the question of the day: If the federales succeed in banishing all undocumented immigrants from Illinois, would that be a good thing or a bad thing? Much evidence suggests it would be a bad thing, on balance, but there is much more that can and ought […]

Frustrated that you are reliant on lyin’ reporters to fact-check assertions by our lyin’ politicians? Ever wonder how the pros decide whether a claim is mis-stated, misleading or downright false? Guardian Reporter Mona Chalabi takes us through the process of fact-checking this recent claim by Donald Trump:  There are two Chicagos, as you know. One […]

 Look, spring training just got underway this week, and I just don’t have the time to make fun of Bruce Rauner’s budget address, so I will leave you in the capable hands of brother Eric Zorn, one of the few reasons left to read the Chicago Tribune. Go to http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/zorn/ct-rauner-budget-speech-laughable-zorn-20170215-story.html and laugh and learn.

 I am obliged to Matt Yglesias over at Vox for pointing out that the Republican Party marked Lincoln’s birthday this year by posting on its official Twitter account a quote from the great man — “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years” — that […]