McHenry County Blog

I didn't have a picture of a black hole in space, so this dark funnel my son spotted one morning in a Springfield hotel's hot tub will have to do for an illustration.

Naturally the black hole that wishes to eat a couple thousand dollars of my income originates in Chicago.

Consider he Chicago Sun-Times today.

Look at the cover.  Abraham Lincoln is crying because taxes aren’t higher.

He isn’t crying because people are unemployed.  He’s crying because governments, state and local, haven’t picked enough money out of our pockets.

I figure when the tax rate is hiked by two-thirds from 3% to 5%, the suggestion from years past of Pied Piper Ralph Matire and, more recently, Chicago’s Civic Federation, it will cost me 750 crying Lincoln $5 bills more than the year before.

That’s when my state pension, for which I repeatedly thank taxpayers, drops by 5%.

It won’t just be me, though.

Everyone with retirement income will see a cut in tax home pay, so to speak, of 5%.

I wonder how many people in Sun City will welcome that day, probably sometime during this July.

Wage earners would see their pay checks get cut by “only” 2%.

Don’t worry.

Government won’t waste any of your lost income.

Surely, Crystal Lake Mayor Aaron Shepley and the five city council members who voted with him to hike Crystal Lake’s city sales tax 75% haven’t wasted any, have they?

The Chicago Tribune has been warned for about two weeks that its paper was going to get smaller.

Saturday it did.

One Tribune employees surmised the paper finally ran out of wider paper.

The new, smaller Chicago Tribune placed on top of Saturday's Chicago Sun-Times.

Look at what happened when I laid the Tribune on top of the Chicago Sun-Times.

I’m told no words were lost because of narrower margins.

I don’t believe this is the first time the Tribune has been downsized.

The unions decided to keep their benefits. That was more important than letting the commuters ride the CTA.

The grief of Scott Lee Cohen's 11-year old son at his father's fall from grace was more important to the Chicago Sun-Times than the "doomsday" for CTA riders trumpeted on page 5.

And the personal grief of Democratic Party Lieutenant Governor Scott Lee Cohen’s son was more important that the doomsday for CTA strap holders who read the Sun-Times.

There was a  CTA bailout in the spinrg of 2008.  It probably cost State Senator Kirk Dillard the Republican gubernatorial nomination.

You remember.

The tripling of our RTA sales tax the week before the Crystal Lake City Council decided to play pile on by hiking its city sales tax by 75%.

Dillard voted for it and Andy McKenna blasted away on radio, TV and in direct mail about Kirk Dillard having voted for a regional states tax as evidence that he was not rock solid on opposing an income tax hike.

That doomsday was on the front page of the Chicago Tribune right before the vote.

But, today, another so-called “doomsday,” the Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times featured Democratic Party Lt. Gov. nominee Scott Lee Cohen announcing he will not accept the nomination. Cohen, by the way, carried the Democratic Party primary in McHenry County.

Take a look:

40% of McHenry County Democrats voted for Scott Lee Cohen for lieutenant governor.

State Senator Terry Link, chairman of the turnaround Democratic Party in Lake County, came to Woodstock to ask for support of McHenry County Democrats, but that doesn’t seem to have done him much good, as he placed fourth behind State Representatives Art Turner (Chicago) and Mike Boland (East Moline).

Making a pitch to the Young Democrats of McHenry County was Thomas Castillo.
= = = = =

Turned over the Tribune that was delivered to my driveway and discovered it did have something about the CTA cuts…below the fold. The snippet directing people to pages 6-8 had a photo of a family who had to wait 30 minutes for a bus while on the way to a party.

And, inside–wouldn’t you know it?–the word “Doomsday” turns up in a headline:

Just in case you’re interested, the Chicago Sun-Times endorsed appointed-Governor Pat Quinn in the Democratic Party primary and Kirk Dillard in the GOP election.

Sunday, the Chicago Tribune is endorsing Andy McKenna.

Click to enlarge any image.

Even though the Senate passed a 67% income tax hike and greatly broaden sales by placing them on all sorts of services, the Chicago Tribune ran not one inch of information on its front page Sunday, the day the House had set its vote on hiking taxes.

Although the Tribune did not think the threat of a 67% income tax increase worth putting on its front page Sunday, I did find an article buried at the bottom right of page 5 of Section 2…today when I was reading the newspapers I hadn’t read this past weekend.

Not appropriate service to its mainly suburban readers, in my opinion.

Sure, the bill passed after nine PM, but the Chicago Sun-Times managed to put something on its front page.

I think the Tribune does, too, considering its front page article on Friday a week ago.

The AP article was on the front page of the Northwest Herald, even if it was beneath the fold.

So, let me offer my congratulations to the Sun-Times and Northwest Herald editors who pulled the late night shift Saturday.

The Tribune gets a raspberry.

Two days after the Democrats got half the way toward their dirty deed–after the income tax was dead for the time being–the Chicago Tribune did better.

At least the headline,

let readers know that they had dodged the bullet.

The Sun-Times was more dramatic:

Inside, it was

The Northwest Herald again ran the Association Press article under the fold on its front page.

Let me also congratulate the NW Herald for not featuring the murder of the late-term abortionist in Wichita. They covered the abortion issue, but from the vantage point that national opinion has come down on the pro-life side for the first time.

The Elgin Courier-News again had nothing on its front page. Farm markets were more important.

The AP story was inside.

In Sunday’s Jack Higgins’ editorial cartoon, he looks at a scene on a CTA bus.

A man is reading a Chicago Sun-Times (what else, he works for the Sun-Times).

Here’s the headline,

A lady looking at the front page asks,

In Sunday’s Jack Higgins’ editorial cartoon, he looks at a scene on a CTA bus.

A man is reading a Chicago Sun-Times (what else, he works for the Sun-Times).

Here’s the headline,

A lady looking at the front page asks,

I wish someone had told me.

Who would have thought that the front page of a newspaper would be a collector’s item?

Maybe I could have sold mine to some “collector.”

Instead of tossing it in the recycling bin.

It was folded and stuffed in a plastic sleeve.

That makes it less valuable, I guess.

Think my not saving the edition will get me on Rahm Emanuel’s Enemies List?

I wish someone had told me.

Who would have thought that the front page of a newspaper would be a collector’s item?

Maybe I could have sold mine to some “collector.”

Instead of tossing it in the recycling bin.

It was folded and stuffed in a plastic sleeve.

That makes it less valuable, I guess.

Think my not saving the edition will get me on Rahm Emanuel’s Enemies List?

There they go again.

Both Chicago newspapers had stories on President-Elect Barack Obama again Friday.

Just like Wednesday.

How long will it last?