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Today on DaTechGuy’s Midnight Court we talk about this list of things that the Corona-Wuhan-CCP virus has revealed and about this excellent piece in response to Brian Stelter’s amazing look at me twitter cry for help.
If you awake and ready to roll you can watch the livestream here
Of course that link works even if you watch it after the fact.
By John Ruberry
“As a result, Illinois government is a massive retirement system that, during work hours, also offers some services.” Chicago Tribune Editorial Board in 2016.
“You never let a serious crisis go to waste.” Rahm Emanuel in 2009.
Last week the president of the Illinois state Senate, Don Harmon (D-Oak Park), sent a letter the state congressional caucus, a gerrymandered lot–more on that latter–asking for $41 billion in aid in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
The devil is in the details–Illinois is a hellish place—and in that letter from Harmon is a request of $10 billion to fund its woefully-underfinanced public pension plans.
Illinois’ pension crisis goes back decades. In 1989 Governor Jim Thompson, a Republican, signed into law an annual compounded three-percent cost-of-living-adjustment for the state’s public pensioners. But the funding wasn’t there. His successor, Jim Edgar, another Republican, seemingly placed a fix into the system in 1994, “the Edgar ramp,” which started with low payments for the 15 years of his plan. But by that time, when the “ramp” was to kick in, Great Recession arrived. And there were “pension contribution holidays” before then. When the 2008 economic collapse hit Rod Blagojevich, who was as bad as math as Edgar and Thompson, was governor.
In the early 1990s pension payments consumed four percent of the Illinois budget–now it’s 25 percent. The state-controlled public pension plans are only about 30 percent funded.
All that time–except for two years–powerful Chicago Democrat, Michael Madigan, has been speaker of the state House.
According to the Illinois Policy Institute, 19,000 state pensioners collect more than $100,000 annually. On average these pensioners paid a paltry $160,000 into their retirement plans. What a great deal!
New Jersey and Kentucky have public pension funding issues that are as bad, or perhaps slightly worse, than that of Illinois. Will they be asking for pension bailouts next?
Cutting the three-percent COLA has been tried–it was ruled unconstitutional in a unanimous decision by the Illinois Supreme Court because of the pension guarantee clause in the state constitution. Repealing that clause is the smart thing to do but it’s a politically tall hurdle. Such an amendment would likely have to pass both chambers of the General Assembly. Thanks to Madigan, a skilled gerrymanderer who is also the chairman of the state Democratic Party, there are Dem supermajorities in both chambers. Two attempts by petition to effectively ban gerrymandering by way of a constitutional amendment was struck down in court. Allies of Madigan were behind the anti-Fair Map suits. The petition process to amend the Illinois constitution is deeply flawed.
The organized labor wing of the Democratic Party, the public sector unions, won’t remain quiet if pensions are challenged. Hey there unions, you contributed to this problem too. In 2005 most public service unions signed on to that year’s pension holiday.
Last week Fitch lowered its bond rating for Illinois to BBB- with a negative outlook. That’s one level above junk.
I’m against an Illinois pension bailout by the federal government. For the most part. But if such aid comes in the form of an International Monetary Fund-style rescue package with conditions that Illinois cleans its fiscal house, such as dropping the 3-percent COLA and taking aim at the top pension earners, those six-figure retirees, I’m willing to listen.
But receivership is best. Okay, let me dream a bit. As Chicago architect Daniel Burnham said a century ago, “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood.” I know, states are viewed as sovereign entities and cannot, as Detroit did in 2013, declare bankruptcy. But what if Illinois agrees to a strings-attached receivership deal? An emergency manager can be appointed. Pritzker, or whoever is governor if receivership comes about, can still handle the ceremonial stuff, such as ribbon cutting for a new bridge and placing bets with other governors when Chicago sports teams are playing for a league championship.
Oh, I’m thinking loans from the feds, not handouts.
As badly funded as Illinois’ pension plans are, many local government pension systems are in worse shape. Illinois municipalities and government agencies, unlike those in Michigan, cannot do so under current state law. That needs to change too.
On a personal note, several friends and relatives of mine are collecting state pensions. Money that was taken from their checks every two weeks for their retirement was instead spent on lord-knows-what. They deserve to be angry and that fury needs to be directed at every Illinois governor from Thompson through Blagojevich. And of course at the Where’s Waldo of Illinois failure, Boss Michael Madigan. He deserves the most rage.
Let me be clear: I don’t take my pension reform views lightly.
Prior to Harmon’s bailout request, the latest pension fix idea was a constitutional amendment to eliminate the Illinois flat income tax guarantee and replace it with a graduated one. That amendment will be presented to Prairie State voters in November. My guess is that it will fail. And even if the graduated income tax amendment passes, the additional revenue won’t be enough. Illinois, which has had negative population growth for six straight years, can’t tax its way of the mess.
John Ruberry regularly blogs from Illinois at Marathon Pundit.
Guy to woman at bar: Will you have sex with me for $1,000,000?
Woman: Well, [pauses] yeah, sure.
Guy: Will you have sex with me for $100?
Woman: [offended] What kind of girl do you think I am?
Guy: We’ve already established that, we’re just haggling over price now.
Very old joke unknown author
Two days ago Stacy McCain took down a post on the murder of Mackenzie Lueck due to objections by some of his kids to its tone.. In said post (which he stands behind despite taking it down) he objected to Ms. Lueck’s friend’s instance that we must to critique the choices that led to her murder and closes thus:
If grown-ups don’t warn girls against this stuff, peer pressure will continue leading many of them down the same road that led Mackenzie Lueck to her grave. Her anonymous friend can try to rationalize this “sugar baby” racket as something other than what it really is, and argue that “society” is wrong to condemn such behavior, but none of that can change the bottom line: “When they’re dead, they’re just hookers.”
The final line being from an episode of the Adult animated series Archer which by an odd coincidence I had just watched the day before.
Now while I see how that might offend some the point is very correct so let me put this into a context that might be readily understood and be less offensive to those of delicate sensibilities.
It is my understanding that young women have turned to “Sugar daddies” to pay for expensive colleges much like Miriam Weeks choose to become porn star Belle Knox porn star to help pay the tuition at Duke. That being the case let me ask this hypothetical question:
If a college operated a program where rich boosters could buy the, shall we say “companionship” of these young ladies (either for themselves or for student athletes as a perk for recruitment) how would feminists react?
Would they suggest that this is an excellent idea as these would be known men who would be less likely to present a physical danger and would not involve traveling and meeting people at 3 am somewhere? Or would they be shocked and angry at a college facilitating rich boosters using their wealth to obtain sex from young woman?
I submit and suggest that there is no moral difference between the pair. They’re both prostitution under a different name and the spiritual and psychological consequences are the same and I would highly advise any young woman considering such a path to reconsider. Once you start renting yourself out as a man’s sexual property you’ll find men will start treating you as property to be bought and sold. Much better to go to a less expensive school and own yourself completely instead of being the rental property of others.
After all is that really the “equality” you want for yourself?
It is absolutely unconscionable that Speaker Nancy Pelosi held up the Coronavrius relief package for about a week in order to advance a progressive wish list. The worst provisions of this progressive wish list were those that were supposed to federalized elections. This would have guaranteed that Democrats would win the majority of all elections going forward, especially presidential elections.
The provisions imposing voting by mail and same day registration on all states would have opened US elections to an enormous amounts of fraud. This is nothing compared to the amount of fraud that would have unleashed on US elections if the provision discussed in this Breitbart article Pelosi ‘Stimulus’ Bill Imposes Nationwide ‘Ballot Harvesting’ Without ‘Any Limit’ was imposed on all 50 states.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s new stimulus bill would mandate nationwide “ballot harvesting,” allowing party operatives to return other people’s ballots to polling places without “any limit” on the number of ballots.
“Ballot harvesting” was legalized in California in 2016, and first used in the 2018 midterm elections. It allows anyone to drop off someone else’s mail-in ballot at a polling station. There is no process for vetting or verifying those delivering the ballots — no background checks or identification requirements. Democrats dropped hundreds of thousands of ballots off at polling stations in 2018, helping Democrats as they flipped seven Republican seats.
Here is the actual text of the ballot harvesting provision.
shall permit a voter to designate any person to return a voted and sealed absentee ballot to the post office, a ballot drop-off location, tribally designated building, or election office so long as the person designated to return the ballot does not receive any form of compensation based on the number of ballots that the person has returned and no individual, group, or organization provides compensation on this basis; and (B) may not put any limit on how many voted and sealed absentee ballots any designated person can return to the post office, a ballot drop off location, tribally designated building, or election office.
When Nancy Pelosi attempted to insert the ballot harvesting provision into the bailout legislation she knew well that it will lead to Democrats stealing elections because it succeeded when it was tried in California. This is documented in the Breitbart article Blue State Blues: Democrats Stole the Election in California — Legally, Through ‘Ballot Harvesting’
California Democrats “stole” the midterm election using a new method that is illegal elsewhere but completely legal in the Golden State: a practice called “ballot harvesting,” which allows third parties to submit mail-in ballots for voters.
The practice explains several mysteries about the 2018 election, such as: why mail-in ballots caused massive shifts toward Democrats in races Republicans thought they won on Election Night; why Republicans won the turnout battle in the primary, but lost it in the general election; and why Democrats with party backing defeated fellow Democrats without it — even when the latter had more money.
It is true that the proposed changes to election law could favor both parties however the Democrats have demonstrated a remarkable proclivity for cheating and fraud. That is because they have embraced Marxist philosophies and Saul Allinsky’s Rule for Radicals. Their success is documented in this San Francisco Chronicle article
California Democrats took advantage of seemingly minor changes in a 2016 law to score their stunningly successful midterm election results, providing a target for GOP unhappiness that is tinged with a bit of admiration…Few people noticed when Gov. Jerry Brown signed the changes in AB1921 into law two years ago. In the past, California allowed only relatives or people living in the same household to drop off mail ballots for another voter. The new law allowed anyone, even a paid political campaign worker, to collect and return ballots — “harvesting” them, in political slang.
In Orange County alone, where every House seat went Democratic, “the number of Election Day vote-by-mail dropoffs was unprecedented — over 250,000,” Fred Whitaker, chairman of the county Republican Party, said in a note to supporters. “This is a direct result of ballot harvesting allowed under California law for the first time. That directly caused the switch from being ahead on election night to losing two weeks later.”
Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Senate Republicans must hold strong. They must make sure the Democrats never take control of our electoral system.
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