This is a rush transcript, excuse all errors!
John Williams
Today is Wednesday. It’s September 14 2022. And it’s 2:36 in the afternoon. Hi, this is John Williams. And once again, thanks for finding The Mincing Rascals podcast. Portions of this will be broadcast Saturday night at 8 pm. on WGN Radio. I’m on weekdays there from 10 to two.
Austin Berg
I’m Austin Berg from the Illinois Policy Institute. And you can listen to me weekly on my podcast, America’s Talking.
Mark Jacob
I’m Marc Jacob, former Metro editor at the Chicago Tribune just a freelance writer now and I’m on Twitter a lot at @MarcJacob 16.
Eric Zorn
He really is on Twitter a lot. Anyone who’s not following Mark Jacob is not following the best commentary of the day. I’m Eric Zorn. I’m the publisher of the Picayune Sentinel weekly newsletter, and I am right now eagerly anticipating a verdict in the R Kelly trial.
John Williams
That’s one of those stories I’ve been able to not follow
Eric Zorn
I’m into following it. I have have a bad impression of R.Kelly, I am going out on the limb here. I think he’s a really bad guy. And I’m looking forward to them convicting him this time. I hope. It was one of those topics that we’ve hadn’t really touched on because what are you going to say? We’re not I’m not the courtroom. I just read all the tweets from the courtroom. But I’m really hoping they get him again, even though I don’t think he’s going to ever go anywhere.
John Williams
Wait, he’s already gonna go to jail.
Eric Zorn
No, no, I know. I said, even though they’ve already got him. Yeah, I mean, I’m not sure that it will add any particular time to the time he’s going to spend behind bars. But from everything I’ve read everything I’ve heard, this guy deserves to be put away for a very, very long time.
Mark Jacob
Pllus it’s also good idea to get him in two different jurisdictions so that if you get he wins on appeal, one place, he’s still in trouble.
John Williams
Darren Bailey is Illinois Republican Party candidate for governor. And while he has been deriding Chicago for its crime problems, he is now moving into the John Hancock building at the end of the Magnificent Mile in the city. He wants to better know and experience the culture the essence of the city, he says. Mincing Rascals panelist Heather Cherone from WTTW Ch.11 tweeted out today that a one bedroom apartment in that building is going to cost him $2,700. I know this is a campaign stunt. But what are campaigns but a series of stunts. So I don’t mind a campaign stunt. But I think the mistake here is staying at a famous touristy skyscraper. The essence of Chicago is not in that building. Not that one location could be but that’s the essence of a vacation in Chicago. If he wants to really come to grips with the city and its people and its circumstances. I’m wondering what advice were we have for him? Where should one go? And you know, I’m not asking the guy to get in trouble. I’m not saying go stay in a tent in Inglewood.
Austin Berg
You said a tent in Englewood. In the first part. You’ve talked to a court pastor Cory Brooks, the man is in a tent in Woodlawn every night
John Williams
Yes, off of Martin Luther King Drive, by the way, and this is the funny thing. Darren Bailey’s been there. He actually went there shortly after pastor Brooks went up there to try and raise money. They’re both of the same political stripe, which may surprise some people. And Bailey went by I don’t know if he’s made a contribution. Pastor Brooks is going to stay on that roof until he gets to $35 million. He’s probably going to come down before then. But that’s been a school and he’s raised going on $19 million since Thanksgiving of last year when he went up there.
Eric Zorn
Well, I was gonna say Rogers Park, Portage Park, Wicker Par, …more more neighborhood living is where I would send him. There obviously isn’t one neighborhood that reflects the diversity and both income and racial diversity that you find in Chicago but certainly the Hancock Building –is that what it’s still called by the way? did the Hancock name come off it
Austin Berg
It’s called the Cheesecake Factory.
John Williams
The big building by the Cheesecake Factory I think they use the number the street address of it now
Eric Zorn
You have to go to the neighborhoods — and I don’t mean Lincoln Park. You know, not not that kind of neighborhood — or the Gold Coast. But one of the residential neighborhoods, lot of bungalows and single family homes. That’s going to give you much more of the essence of Chicago than living in the Hancock
Mark Jacob
I would send him up Milwaukee Avenue where he would see Mexican neighborhood in a Polish neighborhood kind of in quick succession, where maybe a mix of the two and then but also, he just needs to go all over. But the real problem here to me is that Bailey’s already declared the whole city a hellhole. So why bother if that’s what you’ve already concluded?
Austin Berg
I think to Mark’s point, the the real reason If I were him at the end of this campaign to take up residency, at least for some parts of the week in Chicago is he could go have press conferences and get Chicago media to cover them, specifically around crime. And you’ve seen him already doing that. I don’t remember if it was in I think there was a mugging that maybe If he was going to that site the day after, and then there was this horrific mass shooting in Washington Park. Last night, nine people shot, two dead. So given that crime is such an essential part of his campaign message, it would behoove him to get cameras to places where crime is happening, often in really tragic and horrifying ways and get coverage.
Eric Zorn
You know, that’s a distinction that I think he’s banking on people not making, but I don’t even think he’s even thinking it through. I mean, you’re right, it doesn’t make any direct sense. But I think he’s just hoping that you can scare people into voting away from the crime, and he’s the guy. I still don’t understand what he thinks the linkage is between what the governor does day in and day out and crime. Where was was governor Pritzker last night in Washington Park? He’s snot the Sheriff of Illinois. He’s not the chief prosecutor in Illinois. He’s the governor of Illinois. He is behind this some legislation that is controversial, clearly. But I don’t know, if Bailey thinks this is going to gain good traction. I don’t know see what I’m seeing where the traction comes from. People are frustrated by crime, but that’s not the governor’s bailiwick.
Austin Berg
Well, there’s also, I think, an opening there that’s created by the fact that , even just today, the governor said that there were parts of the SAFE-T Act that will probably need to be changed. And that’s referring to this sort of landmark piece of criminal justice reform legislation that has become central to the race for governor. Now, I would say, based on all the messaging and campaigning that’s going on, I think its proponents have said there’s been three trailer bills to that legislation, they’re saying there’s going to be a probably a fourth. So you can leave open this uncertainty around criminal justice, that can be exploited by people for political gain, but they can say, look, they said this was going to make us safer. And you know, there was a story last week and ABC 7, 22 armed robberies in 16 days in Wicker Park and Bucktown. And police aren’t able to pursue what seemed to be two crews that are doing all of that work. And that inspires a lot of fear in people. And I think, of course, that’s something that Darren Bailey
John Williams
But the SAFE-T right now. I mean, you can’t there’s no linkage between the SAFE-T and crime that’s taking place before the first of January,
Eric Zorn
or pursuit policies in the police department either. That’s not what the SAFE-T dresses either.
Austin Berg
But there are there are elements of it that are in place. So the the big element that isn’t is elimination of cash bail, right, so that that would go into place January 1, but I believe today, there’s still the provision that if you’re under electronic monitoring, you’re allowed 48 hours of unrestricted movement before law enforcement can take any action. So there are some provisions in place now. Are these provisions in all cases connected to headline grabbing crimes that we see? Absolutely not. But to your point, people hear crime, governor’s soft on crime, and I’m seeing it my community, I need to hold someone responsible for this. That’s what Darren Bailey’s banking on
Mark Jacob
I just feel like that. There’s no historical perspective on any of this. I mean, if you go to a city with 2.7 million people, you’re gonna be able to find a crime. And and so find the crime and find video of it and make a TV commercial out of it, and say, Oh, hello, we’re going to hell in a handbasket. And, and there’s all these members of the hellhole chorus who will go along with you, and talk about how, you know, Chicago is circling the drain. But let me tell you, Chicago’s NOT circling the train. It’s a lovely city. There’s a lot of great stuff in there a lot of really excellent people, and focusing on what is a real divisive issue and with a racist subtext is not a good way to run a race for governor.
John Williams
Why do you say racist subtext?
Mark Jacob
The whole thing of Oh, the city is bad. Trump did the same thing. Trump used Chicago as code for black people when he was running. I mean, it was whole Chicago, this Chicago that and it was all that we’re not controlling people enough. And, you know, it’s to me, it’s, it’s it’s the suggestion that when people of color are in charge of things , everything goes to hell.
Austin Berg
If I were Bailey, and because this was really over the last week, that sort of his focus on crime, there has been calls of racism of certain ads that have been placed. And certainly throughout American history, there’s been dog-whistle racism on discussions of crime. There’s no doubt about that. But when you’re discussing crime in Chicago and Illinois, if you’re really serious about that, you talk about the fact the racial makeup of the victims of this crime. They are overwhelmeingly black and Latino.
Mark Jacob
Why was the ad about a white woman?
John Williams
You talking about the scream ad? Right?
Austin Berg
I think yeah, partially, that’s a fact of the timeliness of that. That was a recent video. And it was something that was so shocking.
Mark Jacob
Because it was timely or was it because it was a white woman
John Williams
And black assailants?
Mark Jacob
Well, we don’t know what caused the assailant? Oh, really? I
John Williams
thought you could make that I thought that was. It’s kind of hard to tell. I’m mistaken. Fair enough.
Mark Jacob
Well, I mean, Pritzker said it was it was black assailants, I believe. And Dan Proft, who was behind the ad, said that you couldn’t tell, and argued against it that way. So so I don’t know. I don’t know about the assailants. I’m just saying the victim was shite. The whole message of why this is, you know, is good to make this crime issue. The big issue is because it’s not racist, because most of the victims are victims of color. Yeah, I mean, it’s blown up when you look at the Oh, some white woman gets attacked in Lakeview. And that’s the main message in this app.
John Williams
Well, it’s a compelling ad.
Mark Jacob
It’s Willie Horton
John Williams
Fair enough. All I’m saying is that it, it works. If you want to scare people into believing that crime is coming to get you even in some nicer neighborhoods. Is that a fair ad? I think the ad victimizes the woman all over again, I have not read any reporting that says that she signed off on it, or that she has a favorite candidate for governor. I don’t know how she feels about it. I’m a little disappointed that none of us havr been able to track her down. But it would seem to me like if she did not okay that, then I think that ad is unconscionable. And I believe it is unconscionable. And
Eric Zorn
Have we totally moved on from the ad that Dan Proft and his people put out in which they darkened the mayor? That was a couple of weeks ago. But that was a tell to me as to where that campaign is coming from and where they’re hoping to inspire votes. As disgusting as I think this is and I tend to agree with Mark on this, that it’s also hard to take Darren Bailey all that seriously as a candidate. I can’t imagine him winning the governor’s race.
John Williams
saying that, Eric, I think he’s going to do better than you think he’s going to do.
Eric Zorn
I’ll give you a percentage. What do you how many points? Is he going to lose by?
John Williams
not going to answer that
Eric Zorn
18 percentage points!
Austin Berg
The biggest effect of an ad like that is not to get people to vote for Darren Bailey. It’s to get Democrats to not vote for JB Pritzker, or to not vote at all. And I think that is probably the calculus behind that because it’s a big leap to say, Hey, are you worried about crime and Lakeview to vote for for Darren Bailey for governor
John Williams
who ,I’m sorry, looks and sounds like he doesn’t have a clue. I mean, I mean, this is a guy who said, Okay, I’ll connect with Chicagoans. I’ll rent an expensive apartment of the John Hancock Building. Hello. Hello.
Mark Jacob
Although just in fairness to him, and I don’t know why I’m being fair to him. But just in fairness to him when Jane Byrne moved into Cabrini Green people made fun of her. So it’s almost like you can’t win on that.
John Williams
I just want to give a little backdrop to the scream ad that we’re talking about. A super PAC is running a 30-second commercial for Darren Bailey. It’s the raw video and audio of ring video of a woman getting mugged. So from the perspective of somebody’s front porch, you see a woman walking down the sidewalk, a vehicle pulls up, three people come out, and you hear her screams for the almost entirety of the ad. Then at the end, darkened images of JB Pritzker and Lori Lightfoot roll up in the ad asks if you’ve had enough what do you know how much of this are we going to put up with? Bailey was asked about that commercial because his campaign didn’t run it but the PAC supporting him does and at the time, he has this plausible deniability. He says, Well, I haven’t seen it yet. But he also hasn’t said that it should be pulled. He hasn’t said anything bad about it. In fact, he and other Republicans at least some of them in the state have this end justifies the means attitude about the whole thing are non scientific news, click we did at the radio station or WGN radio.com News. Click asked listeners how they feel about the ad. And 67% said it’s awful don’t do that. 18% said it’s fair game. And 15% said, Well, I haven’t seen it yet. Which means to me a lot of people have seen that ad it was all over the Bears game the other day.
Austin Berg
For candidates, briefly, on if you’re asked to comment on something and you say you haven’t seen it, that’s the most surefire way to make sure that it’s the only question you get asked for the next two or three days. Have you seen it yet? When are you going to see it? Wanna see it? Here it is
John Williams
I’t sbeen ahard to miss lately. It’s so penetrating. This poor woman screams she’s just screaming and screaming. That’s all. That’s all the app. And you’re right in that. It nowhere in that ad or for that matter on the campaign does Darren Bailey say here’s how I’m going to keep these people from getting mugged, and Lakeview, how is the governor going to fix that? Well, you know, in fact, I think it’s telling that Lori Lightfoot appears in these commercials, because at least it’s her problem, but then they link her to JB Pritzker.
Mark Jacob
Well, she’ll be running soon, so it’s kind of a twofer?
Eric Zorn
And I would say I think it’s a legitimate issue in the mayor’s race coming up, and we’re not going to be voting is the number one issue of employers race. Yeah, probably are certainly up there. One or two. What is she going to do differently about, about dealing with crime in Chicago? And, you know, people are concerned about it. Marks right. It’s not, we’re not, it’s not a hellhole here. We’re at hig levels of crime, , no question about, but we’re not at record high levels of crime. Not even close.
Mark Jacob
I looked it up. I looked it up, Eric, it’s in 1974 there were 970 homicides. They’re looking around pace for a little over 600 Last I saw so it’s you know, about two thirds of what it was at the height and in 1992 It was 939. So it’s bad everyone knows that the crime is bad, and we haven’t done enough to fix it. But it but but this is focusing on a problem as if it’s a new problem when it’s really a very old problem.
Eric Zorn
It’s was part of it’s part of the Republican playbook, always has been and they’re all for law and order, at least on a local level. When it comes to ex presidents. They’re a little less punctilious.
John Williams
You know what you made me think of the ex presidents and Republicans not being so punctilious about it. I went back and heard my Ken Starr interview that we did four years ago this week when his book came out. And he said things about how presidents should be charged for crimes, how they don’t have executive privilege. He was talking about Clinton, but he was also talking about Trump and 2018. And just thought it was interesting that some of the things that he said four years ago about Clinton are actually resonant even today. The book is interesting by him. I was not prepared to like the book or him but his just telling of his life story, Ken Starr who passed away yesterday at the age of 76. And then his telling about how they went down that rabbit hole that five year rabbit hole investigating the Clintons is is an interesting book
Mark Jacob
Did you ask him about the Baylor issue?
John Williams
That’s what my producer asked me.l Did you ask him about the Baylor thing? And I don’t recall doing that at the time. I was so interested in having him tell me that story and then his references to Donald Trump. And when the book came out, he would have already lost his position at Baylor right for mishandling things there. So I missed an opportunity there. I guess.
Eric Zorn
When you think about how upset the Republican Party was back in the 90s, over Bill Clinton lying about a sexual affair, and how blase they are about the comprehensive lying that Trump has done and the the manifest offenses he’s committed. It’s mind boggling, isn’t it? That the same party that had its knickers in a twist over Bill Clinton, lying about lying about a little sexual fling?
Mark Jacob
Well, wait a second. Wait a second, Eric. What Clinton did was wrong. And he was and he was in effect her boss.
Eric Zorn
not saying I’m gonna say it was right. I’m saying that the perspective of it the
Mark Jacob
it’s totally out of perspective. It’s but but I just I don’t want to make anyone think there’s just some silly little dalliance.
Eric Zorn
No, no,
John Williams
It was profoundly wrong. The more times between then and now, it seems to me the worst Clintons crime gets in my mind. It was so opportunistic. She was such a young girl, it was just so not only inappropriate, it was predatory.
Eric Zorn
I agree with that. I’m just saying I’m saying it. In the context of this, I mean, they were getting him on they were trying to get him on. perjury on us. Yeah, it was totally wrong. I’m not goingsay it was right. But but the you look at them, and you look at how forgiving they are about about everything that Trump has done and said, and, . I’m taking us on a tangent here.
Mark Jacob
You could say the same thing about about Hillary’s emails.
John Williams
Well, that to me is the claim that makes a better comparison. I mean, imagine that if if Hillary had boxes and boxes of documents, which she probably does, by the way, and I’ll bet Hunter Biden does too. But I mean, if they found boxes of stuff like that, rather than who knows what on our email server, wow, you know that scene where you’re buying something, and so as not to get some ones in change you overpay so that the correct change would be maybe a $5 bill. Maybe you’ve done with with coins too, or at least we used to. And sometimes the unaware clerk will look confused. Why did you give me $14 For something that cost nine, a situation like that happened to Thomas DeVore. Five years ago, he was running for a downstate school board seat at the time and he complained then on Facebook. He described his seen as quote, I gave her a 20 and two ones, and the special child that’s the politically correct term for a window licker looked at me and argued a divorce goes on to say that he had overpaid for a reason. He wrote then here comes a special child number two, and I told her to figure it out. He got no satisfaction with that exchange, he finally wrote, Lord help us with the window liquors, I mean, special children. When that story hit the fan, he lost that election, he actually filed a lawsuit against the special ed teacher who was critical of what he posted in that district. Yes,
Eric Zorn
it was in a really excellent front page story by Dan Petrella in the Tribune, he wrote about DaVore’s npropensity for filing lawsuits when he is when he feels himself wronged. And this is the was the lead example. And first thing that struck me is that that term window liquors is not one that I was all that familiar with, or familiar with at all. But that a little bit of research shows you is a fairly common slang term for people with with mental disabilities. And the use of that term was so vile, and so uncalled for. I don’t know, from any reading that I’ve done about this, that whether these children were actually special needs kids, or whether they were just carried young people at a concession stand, it says he was at a ballgame. It may have been a high school basketball game. And often those concession stands are not staffed by professionals. They’ve got you know, they’ve got kids running the concessions, and you give them $1 They get popcorn and so on. So you, he’s got a $7 charge, and he gives them $22. And this confuses somebody who doesn’t, I mean, maybe they maybe they were disabled kids, maybe they were just kids who didn’t do quick math on that. But for him to overreact like that, just in the first place. Even it’d be even if he’d used even if he hadn’t made that allusion. Just if he had had had written a splenetic Facebook post, I’d be like, well, who, who cares? so his kids couldn’t do the math. He’s up buddy. Chill, but then to use that language. Okay. That was that was sort of his first offense. Then he was interviewed by St. Louis TV station, and he was saying, Oh, no window liquors. That just means a term for someone who’s irritating and unruly, mean and disrespectful. That’s what that’s what he tried to claim. And he said that he was referring that his reference to special children was not a reference to children with special needs.
John Williams
he never use the word needs. He said
Eric Zorn
I guess I’m playing kind of judge and jury here. But I mean, that’s jus a lie. And then for to compound the offense to file a lawsuit. I mean, this is it all adds up to just such despicable behavior, such such disqualifying behavior. And my claim that I that I’m raising in the Picayune Sentinel this week is that the Republican Party should be ashamed of itself. It doesn’t distance itself from DeVore. It should demand divorce resignation. Now, this story isn’t new, you know, it was it was reported in the tribune maybe for the first time, but it was certainly put on the front page of the tribune for the first time now. And I just think that now that we know this about him, this is a deal breaker and I think the Republican Party if there’s any shred of decency left in that party, they need to distance themselves strongly from them.
Austin Berg
It strikes me just in his rise as Trumpian in some way, right because he had more name ID than any of the other Republican primary candidates because he was in the news all the time filing lawsuits against lockdown orders and you know, reopening schools and reopening businesses, all these things and he was able to get a ton of attention through that. And clearly in his past has done brash and uncouth things like this. And it’s definitely a that’s a tough record to deal with when you’re running for an office that ostensibly is one that you were Do you need some level of motor? What would you say probity, or even headedness
Mark Jacob
empathy too
Eric Zorn
probity and empathy though actually lacking those I’m gonna steal those words and use them from.
John Williams
I wonder if it matters, though, that it took place five years ago, remember when we talked about something that Darren Bailey had posted? And Eric does wasn’t you who said, Gee, that was so long ago, he wasn’t even a candidate, then. Maybe it’s not as necessary to judge him by something they, you know, he was just a knuckle tuck in Southern Illinois, just throwing something on Facebook at the time.
Eric Zorn
Okay. Okay. Okay. If you want to give him that,there here’s the apology? Where’s the I will do better? Where’s the I was the I had a bad moment. I used some language, I regret it. I’m really sorry. This is unacceptable language. I admit that? Instead, just in May, during that during the campaign, at an event in McHenry County, he was he was dismissing it all as being a lie. Maybe suggesting that somebody else wrote the Facebook post, he’s not owning it. And that and that compounds the offense every day when you don’t own it. Yeah, he said it five years ago, but he didn’t he hasn’t owned it yet. And it’s it’s clearly too late to own and at this point, that my view of it, if you if you make a remark like that, and you don’t try to skin it back somehow, and you can you’re doubling down and effect by filing lawsuits and stuff. You’re compounding the offense.
Mark Jacob
I don’t understand why politicians do that either. Because the American public is both forgiving, and also has a short memory. And so if you do something wrong, and you admit it, things move on, and things float down the river, and I don’t even think it’s good politics unless it’s this politics of never given inch, ever admit anything constant combativeness.
Austin Berg
I I’m working on a project related to the Chicago Teachers Union and its history right now. And I came across the story. Some of you guys might remember from 2011, when the late Karen Lewis was speaking at American Federation of Teachers conference, and she made fun of Arne Duncan’s lisp. And she said, if you would have gone to public, she did a mocking voice to imitate a lisp and then said, If he would have gone to public school, he would have got that list fixed. And what was interesting about that was that she did apologize. She apologized directly to Duncan, a few months after that, but again, you know, that’s something it’s an old remark, but especially when you’re going you’re kind of punching down and going after folks with disabilities, you can apologize. And I mean, it apparently worked for her in Chicago, because I think her legacy is one that is viewed quite positively among a lot of Chicago Teachers, at least,
John Williams
Karen Lewis. Yeah, I would just want to go back, though, to the original story, Eric, because I think that what he was touching on people’s inability to understand that thing where you overpay for something, so you get a five back instead of three ones, or however, the changes working out? way, I think we’ve all run into instances where the people behind the counter don’t get it. And there is this sort of frustration with our inability to do some simple math. And then I can just imagine a scene where these students at a school weren’t able to do simple math. And then you decry the level of math education or kids in schools these days, you see stuff like that all the time. And there’s even a little truth to that, how kids should better be able to do simple mathematics, a simple problem like that. Taking special needs kids out of the equation, right.
Eric Zorn
But he special needs kids into the equation. Perhaps gratuitously And if he had made the point that I think you’re suggesting that he could have made, which is our schools need to do better.
John Williams
There you go,
Eric Zorn
no one would be talking about this post today. And he might have won the school board election and had something else to do besides run for governor run for attorney general. Yeah, I mean, yeah, woula couldfa shoulda But but that’s not what he did.
John Williams
And it’s interesting the position he’s running for, it’s not local counsel, or it’s not even a legislative seat. It’s the attorney general. This is a person who’s going to have to weigh the appropriateness of certain cases, which ones you’re going to take on how are you going to adjudicate them and for for his track record to just be one sort of punitive or frivolous lawsuit after another? Doesn’t make him the ideal template for that position. But I don’t know. Eric, you said he should. What is it resigned? He doesn’t have a position to resign from you mean, just end this campaign and quit?
Eric Zorn
Yeah, quit his campaign. Yeah. I can call for that. Right. Isn’t that a pundits prerogative? Some absolutely unreasonable demand of a candidate.WHy not?
John Williams
Upon hearing this podcast he says, you know, you’re right. Okay.
Eric Zorn
That Zorn guy i in Chicago he’s right. No, but I am much more serious about the idea of the Republican Party taking a stand on this this race. is not going to be winnable for them.
Austin Berg
And there hasn’t been big money that’s come in on DeVore’s side from Republican donors as far as I’m aware. Yeah. So some sense. Maybe they
Eric Zorn
it’s 18 points
John Williams
are, what did he loaned his campaign $251,000. So now anybody can give as much as they want to give, but I’m not aware of Dick Uihlein or somebody’s given him some millions of dollars to run. Too bad. We don’t have a Republican commentator in this crew today. But it just is a shame. I really mean that, that the Republican Party for such high level posts in the state are running guys like Darren Bailey and Thomas DeVore. If you like me think that Democrats have not guided this state or city well, all the time, who’s going to pick up the slack? And you cut? This DeVore guy is the Attorney General candidate. You’ve got Darren Bailey, who Eric says is going to lose by 99 points So what would that be?
Eric Zorn
59% to 41%
Mark Jacob
I don’t think you’re right there. I think it’d be closer.
John Williams
I do too. Only because I’ve had my heart broken before but even 41% Sounds like a big number to me. I mean, that may be getting crushed but one starts with a five and the other starts with a four that to me at a at a glance that looks closer than I want my state to be on candidates who have comported themselves this way
Eric Zorn
is DraftKings taking bets on thi> There probably is a site that has prop bets. Ladbrokes overseass takes bets on on political races.
John Williams
Speaking of sports, how happy should Bears fans be about their season opening win against the 40 Niners? I know we’re not sports experts here but everybody’s a football expert. When it comes to the NFL in their hometown team. I presume we all saw the game what did you guys think about the bears victory? I
Austin Berg
think it required b|Bears weather to happen. I think the color commentator said it well we’re you know, when it really started coming down with 10 minutes to go like this is a closer like this is your lockdown the game and I think that you know, that’s probably had a lot to do with it. You know, if they just play outdoors the rest of the year and it’s terrible weather then
John Williams
we don’t need a dome. We need a sprinkler system just like in the fourth quarter turn on the jets and just have it rain. Because the rain is a leveler. It evens out to teams and it favors defense if you asked me as opposed to offense. So lucky us all we had to do is make a couple good defensive stands in the fourth quarter. But we also benefited from them just committing so many penalties. The reason the Bears won that game was because the 49ers lost it. So my thought the next day was I’d still rather have their team than our team. Even though I’m glad the Bears
Eric Zorn
Every sports pundit at the Trib and Sun-Times took the 49ers to win , which suggested that the 49ers are a better team. They certainly looked like the better team in the first half. And the score should have been should have been much worse after the first half the Bears looked terrible. The first touchdown, the Bears score was like a flukeon a a broken play. And and I mean, it’s fun to watch and you know, that’s flukes happen in sports. But after this game, my guess is that the 49er wind up with a better record than the bears by several games just looking at the way those teams stacked up/ I thought their quarterback looks pretty good. He’s looks a little bit raw. But and as I as I said to you to the day John, I think that all this talk about how much fun it was to watch these guys slip sliding around Soldier Field, sports ought to be about ideal conditions with ideal athletes being able to play at their at their fullest potential. And games are novelties, like the fog bowl back in what was 8485 that you can have these kind of games you can have Blizzard games and so on but, but in the long run for the comfort of the fans and for the integrity of the contest, I prefer good weather or domes,
Mark Jacob
It’s just a cruel plot by the Bears to get our hopes up before they break our hearts again.
John Williams
You know what the over under for the season was? You know what the Vegas was saying? How many games the Bears will win? What would you guess for this? 17 game season?
Eric Zorn
Five, s
Austin Berg
seven and a half
Mark Jacob
Seven
John Williams
Yeah, five and a half, five and a half is the number. So we’re already on the way. We don’t have to go to the Super Bowl. We just got to win five more games.
Eric Zorn
The Packers didn’t look that great on Sunday. So maybe next next Sunday night or Monday night, Sunday night Sunday,
John Williams
then you would prefer not to have the frozen tundra of green Bay at Lambeau Field you would rather those be indoors as well.
Eric Zorn
lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllI would
John Williams
boy you still you do lose something there don’t shoot because I’ve always said about say the bears moving to Arlington Heights. But for the comfort of 80,000 people in the stadium it’s really a TV show the games or TV shows. Now what’s what’s a more fun to show from the comfort of your living room. You’re not sitting there. It might be more fun to watch him play in that amazing rainstorm or a terrible snow or fog. That’s kind of that’s fine. It’s 80 degrees 70 degrees in my house.
Eric Zorn
And you could have a Olympic swimmers swimming through putting instead of water. Come on, the dome provides a better viewing experience too Yeah, and I admit the novelties is interesting. And it’s fun to watch games in a blizzard or a rainstorm. But if you’re really interested in the integrity of the of the contest you want and you also want to see the athletes performing at their best. You don’t want to see him, you know tiptoeing through puddles trying to make plays, it’s not that easy. As you point out, John, it’s kind of a great leveler, but you don’t the sport shouldn’t be about leveling you shouldn’t be about you should be about which team is the best, which players are the best. And I feel like I’m a crank on this. I feel like I’m like, you know, the people are moving on the radio that and people were texting in? Well, football is made for being played outdoors.
John Williams
And no, my favorite text of the show and you were on with us was I’ll bet Eric Zorn has never played football. So I’m sort of limp pansy, who doesn’t appreciate the rigor of manly sports.
Eric Zorn
Oh, he was almost right. Because I did play in eighth grade I played for my eighth grade Junior High Team that didn’t play very well. It’s was a three game season. So I’m saying your texter was was pretty close to.
Austin Berg
I don’t think it’s curmudgeonly The big hullabaloo over baseball rule changes for next year. Wow. And have had the shift anymore. Yeah. That’s a great example of like, a rule that I guess, Institute is you can’t keep throwing over to first base to keep a runner close. If on the third throw to first base on a given runner. If you don’t pick them off, he’s automatically awarded the next base. You’re gonna get two tosses over. If you don’t get them on the third. He’s going to get that bag. So what you’re not going to do is you’re not going to throw it over a third time. You’re going to now start going home more and it’s going to speed up the game that way too.
Eric Zorn
Yeah, but I kind of like it. Like, that seems like a fun. I mean, the thing is that I don’t like this shift rule that that Austin talked about because you baseball it’s someone’s it’s a chess game. We move our point we we shift our outfielders around, we moved our infielders around, and if you can hit them where they ate, then, if Kyle Schwarber learns how to lay that way above, he’s gonna get a signal every time and so it’s like, you hear our strengths or your strengths. We’re playing them off against each other. And I know the pickoff throws Yeah, I’ve seen I’ve seen players pitchers don’t go to the first base. Four or five, six times gets old. I’d like to see a rule that once the batter steps into the batter’s box, he’s got to stay there. Yeah. And you’ve maybe three times a game you can call timeout to go talk to the third base coach, but other than that, you’ve got to stay there. I like to see a rule like that. They and they want to speed up the game so they can easily speed up the between innings get rid of the folderol.
Mark Jacob
but that would mess with the TV commercials.
Eric Zorn
the problem. S
John Williams
when you use words like “baldeol” then you are an official crank. By the way,
Eric Zorn
It’s folderol. But yes, yes I am.
John Williams
Excuse me, what is the word?
Eric Zorn
Folderol. Stuff and nonsense. Balderdash. All these things.
John Williams
The idea is to shorten the game, but I agree with you actually. I mean, I’m intrigued by these rule changes. I’m not sure how much I’m gonna love them. But I’ve always thought that you ought to be able to put your players wherever you want to put them. But now if they determine that a player is on the wrong side of second base, or is on the outfield grass, he has to be on the dirt. If the other team calls it, and it is judged to have been an offense, then I think they’re going to award a ball to the batter that up. I think that’s what happens. Laura Washington has been on our podcast several times and will again in the future. She couldn’t join us today but in the Chicago Tribune, she had a piece why I loved and now fear the CTA. In part she said I am a CTA devotee. I have spent a lifetime riding the buses and trains of Chicago with sentimental memories of the all day super transfer. And those old green CTA buses of the 60s and 70s. They were dubbed the green limousines. To get to high school I took two buses in a train across town. Now for the first time in my life. I fear the CTA. Violent crime on our trains and buses has risen to a level not seen in more than a decade. According to a recent Sun Times analysis through July 19 488 attacks had been reported on the transit system the most since 533. During the same period in 2011. The Sun Times reported the number of passengers has remained relatively low since COVID 19 pandemic hit, that means writers are more likely now to fall victim to a violent crime than they were a few years ago. And towards the end of her peace, she said after spending a recent Sunday afternoon at the Chicago Jazz Festival, my husband and I boarded the L the train had state and Lake to hulking young people straddling divvy bikes and talking smack were blocking the door. They glared and refuse to move the heavy smell of marijuana wafted through the air. I held my breath until our train blessedly came another time I steered clear of another man in the train sporting a nasty disposition, openly smoking a cigarette. Once I was proud to claim the CTA is one of the best public transportation systems in the nation. The COVID 19 pandemic has decimated the agency and his ridership. And she goes on to point out that the CTA President Dorval Carter Jr. said on Channel 11 crime on the CTA is relatively low. One is too many but statistically are relatively safe. He said on the CTA. She said that’s unconvincing and it’s cold comfort. Austin, you still ride? Is it the red line when you’re not riding your bike?
Austin Berg
I usually will do brown or purple. But sometimes they’ll be on I need to take the red line somewhere. But that feels right to me. And that feels like something I hear a lot of people anecdotally say I am curious. I’ve never seen historical data on CT crime on the CTA. And maybe that doesn’t exist or maybe it’s hard to get. But I would be curious to know if this is much worse than historically.
Eric Zorn
She did quote in 2011. Crime rates were higher. We have maybe lower numbers of crime, but because we have fewer riders the crime rate on the CTS Yeah. Does seem to be there. Those numbers seem to be out there.
John Williams
So they had a few more in 2011 riders, but a few more crimes in 2011. But so many more riders at the rate was lower than that it is now. Yeah, so
Austin Berg
that rings true. Like per capita, it’s higher. And it reminds me of like, I don’t know how, John, you spent a lot of time downtown. When nobody was going downtown. And I remember just being like in the middle of the loop. And it seeming like wow, there are more people with serious mental health problems in the loop than I’ve never ever seen before. But it was just because there were fewer typical workers in the loop at that point. So they stood
John Williams
out. Yeah, maybe. Maybe it was the same number.
Austin Berg
Yeah, yeah, similar phenomenon on the CTA. And to Eric’s point earlier, you know, this is something that does, the power to fix and address this does rest kind of solely on the mayor in Chicago. In other cities, there’ll be more of a role for city council to put forth some robust debate and new policies on what to do with this. That’s not the way we work here. It’s clearly an issue that’s on the top of people’s minds and it’s making it it becomes this death spiral where service becomes worse so people don’t ride so service becomes worse so people don’t ride and it’s kind of hard to turn around. Or if you
Eric Zorn
add security measures if you say add an add a conductor as well as a person who drives the train, then you have to raise your rates to pay for that. And that depresses ridership too. So that I mean, there’s not an obvious solution to that they have been putting guards with dogs back out again. And I don’t know exactly what effect that is having those people on the platform with the dogs. They’ve had that for a while, several years ago, and they stopped, because I think they were finding that it wasn’t working either bringing them back. And I don’t know if that’s for show, or if there’s some, some actual proven deterrent effect.
Mark Jacob
But you know, Eric show is important. You know, I think I feel like that, like, whenever I was riding on the island, I just don’t know, because I’m not working downtown anymore. But I always felt like they didn’t do enough walkthroughs you know, and you’re gonna get mentally unbalanced people, occasionally, you know, riding public transportation, and we shouldn’t all feel unsafe when we’re on there. And I just felt like they would like, like, just just a show of force or a show of, you know, just a show of authority is really important in cases like that. People like me, you know, have options, we can buy a car, we can get a cab, but you know, if the people who most rely on public transportation, for their livelihood should not be victimized by an unsafe transit system.
Eric Zorn
Right, I think it’d be really nice if they had somebody want to retrain, who would just walk the cars and make absolutely no problem. But again, that was that’s gonna raise the costs.
John Williams
Well, I would say subsidize it, then I don’t know, borrow the money, steal the money, take a version of the department, but just get us back to some sort of critical mass because as much as it was a legitimate concern before the pandemic, now it’s a deal breaker and people were the trains were packed before the pandemic. And now they’re not Austin, you said you ride it. And sometimes the trains are pretty crowded, but they’re not as crowded as they were. And if you get enough people on the trains often enough, then if nothing else, it’s harder for these people to commit these crimes. I would, I would beg, borrow and steal, I would find a way to have somebody walking the trains and on the platforms all the time.
Austin Berg
And the way to do that could be I always thought this was odd that they did this during COVID. They didn’t reduce frequency of trains that much. They didn’t plot. Yeah. Right. And it was that was really a jobs program. And I think that had a bad effect. When you when you lower the frequency. Yeah, it might be a little bit more inconvenient. But when you’re on the train, you’re on a train with with more people. And I think that’s something worth exploring.
John Williams
Well, and Laura points out in her piece to that, like Mark said, some of us had the luxury of being able to overtake a cab, have a car, we have other options, we can work around it, we’re not working a third shift or have to be traveling on a Saturday at 2am. But some people do and they don’t have other resources. And I think everybody else would think, Oh, you’re a fool. If you ride the CTA, on a Friday night at midnight, I’m sure the people that are on there that are being victimized don’t want to be there either. But they they just have so few options. I don’t know what the CTA can do about that. Other than staff them with more guards. I don’t know why the guards that they’re putting out there are unarmed by the way. It’s a it’s beyond a shame. It’s just wrong. That the best advices don’t ride the CTA at night.
Eric Zorn
I have a question about this, which is that the perception of the of the dangers of the CTA may be being enhanced by the ubiquity of all the videos that we have that so many times in back in 2011 when not everyone was carrying a camera or a phone with them and when and when the surveillance video that they had was sparse and very, very grainy. Now you’ve got some high quality surveillance video, you’ve got people taking videos on their phones of these of these assaults. So that the percent and I’m wondering if this if this is something that affects our overall impression of crime in Chicago, we talked earlier about the scream video. That was from a doorbell camera, I’m pretty sure and those didn’t exist in 2011. And so you’re getting you’re getting video that to underscore and fie people’s fears and perceptions that you didn’t have before. So I’m wondering how much of of Laura Washington’s experience or others experiences is enhanced or aggravated exacerbated by video.
John Williams
That’s a good point. I you may be onto something there. Eric, our producer Pete just handed me this. Now that Darren Bailey is living in Chicago reporter asked Illinois gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey if he’ll further immerse himself in the Chicago culture by taking public transportation Bailey said quote, that’s a good idea. I hadn’t thought about that. Thank you for that idea. I wonder what reaction he would get if he was walking down Michigan Avenue or if he was on a red line train would you know people pat him on the back and say, Go Darren or I’m not voting for you, but I respect and appreciate that you’re here? Or would he just get roundly booed wherever he goes? I would love to see him just stroll up and down Michigan Avenue.
Austin Berg
The sad thing is that we think people care or No, not even as Iota as much about politics and our state as the people on this panel, I don’t think most people would know who he was. But to that point, if you’re recommending someone see the city, like genuinely get a feel for the city, the red ride the red line, you get pretty much you can cover so much ground, you see so many different types of people. Yeah,
John Williams
sure. I mean, sit there do the Sox cubs series. And, you know, one thing that he would know, then that anybody would know would be, how complicated it is to be governor, I mean, all those different neighborhoods, all those different people, you will be in charge of, in a way, you have to make life better for all of these people, all these different neighborhoods, all these different concerns, some of them well off, but still have legitimate concerns, some people poor and they just need a grocery store nearby, you would get a sense of the enormity of the problem, it’s easy to sit back and take potshots from Central Illinois or Southern Illinois. But if you if you really did immerse yourself in Chicago, you’d go man, I don’t want this job. And on that happy note, we are all done today, boys. Unless there’s anything else you want to add, Mark, anything you want to throw in the mix here. Are you writing another book right now?
Mark Jacob
Hey, I’ve been reading Yeah, I’m not gonna expose what the subject is. But I have been reading newspaper stories from the 1950s 1960s for months now. And it’s fascinating, because you realize all the things that people criticize the media for now, we’re kind of true, then mistakes, you know, and bad typos, all this. But it also, I wonder what though whether that kind of newspaper record will be available, you know, of this era, you know, 50 years from now,
John Williams
what do you mean by that? What kind of records?
Mark Jacob
print newspapers are going away. And or they’re certainly the frequency is being diminished. And I think they will go away or go to one once a week. What I’m looking at is I’m looking at pages from 1940, and 1950. And it’s all there. It’s captured. And so if it’s if somebody posts a story on the web, now, who’s to say that that’s going to exist in any form, and 40 or 50 years? That’s what? That’s what I’m worried about.
Austin Berg
I was looking at newspapers.com, , it’s amazing. And but I can go to where my ancestors immigrated in the 1870s, Altamonte Illinois, which now has a population of 2700 people. And they have a daily newspaper that came out every day throughout the early 20th century. And I don’t know where I would ever go in 50 years to learn about what’s happening and Altamont today,
John Williams
are you saying that because of the lack of a printed edition,
Austin Berg
not even there’s just no, there’s there’s no, no one to my knowledge, like the Wayback Machine is an amazing source of human knowledge on the internet. But there’s no place I could go to see what was happening and ultimate in July of 2022. You know,
Mark Jacob
I mean, even if you capture everything that was going on in media today, is less this in a lot of places, there’s less original reporting going up, I think, is kind of one of Austin’s points, and I agree with it, it’s clearly
Eric Zorn
true that that you have these publications that are shrinking that that the digital record is not nearly as secure as the paper, the microfilm record that you have companies will take servers down. I know that Tribune for a while, had a whole bunch of blogs that they were running, written by, like Chris Jones, who’s now the editorial page editor and some of the sports guys, and they just took all of those offline, they just they just, they’re gone. And I think marks right, we’re gonna have a hard time discerning what was going on, especially in some of these small towns, where the coverage is going to be all digital and you just never know what what platform it’s going to be on. And if it’s someone’s just gonna come in and erase it. If you remember when, when DNA info went down. The Ricketts family just completely pulled the plug on all their their archives. No notice, no, no, no, no. And there’s a hue and cry and reinstatedthem. But the tribune recently got rid of Chicago Now, which was their, their blogs that they had for many years. They pulled the plug on those and those are gone. And despite an outcry, and I wrote about a little bit too, I just said, you know, this is they didn’t they gave them no warning, pull the plug on it. A lot of people had saved some of their material, you know, hardcopy or in their own hard drives, but other people hadn’t. And, and it was, you know, and again, you know, Chicago now was not a news source as such, but it was a sense of what people were thinking about writing about Mark, you were you weren’t involved in it directly.
Mark Jacob
sometimes when I was Metro editor, we’d sometimes get ideas From there, yeah, it was a conversation. And that’s important.
Eric Zorn
And the fact that they just, it’s gone. It’s troubling just for the for its broader implications. It’s bad for the people who are writing those stories and who will put their put their hearts into them. But it’s also bad as a symbol as to what may well happen to all this stuff going forward.
John Williams
I, we have a house in Ottawa, Illinois, which is a town of about 19,000 people. And we get the Ottawa times. And I love that little newspaper. And I don’t know what the break point is for how big a town has to be to support a paper like that. But it’s got local lads. There’s the police blotter, the obituaries. And then good write ups of the local school board meeting and good write up sub, you know, stuff, the paving of the road, and the bridge and the traffic and all of that, and it’s very local people in Chicago wouldn’t care about it. They don’t have to care about it. But Brenda reads it page to page, you know, front to back, and I do to as much as I can. And I really get a sense of our little town there. When I read that paper. I would hate it if that went away.
Mark Jacob
John, it might.
John Williams
you think so?
Mark Jacob
I’m just saying that I would say every small newspaper in the United States is imperiled
Eric Zorn
Thousands of them are closing every year. Right? The little tiny papers. John, do you write cranky letters to the editor?
John Williams
I do not.
Eric Zorn
That’s that’s good content.
John Williams
No, I’ve read cranky text messages to my radio show. And on that, we will wrap it up. Mark will look for this mystery book that you’re cobbling together and join us again some time. It’d be intriguing to hear more about that and we appreciate your helping us out today. Thank you, Austin. Eric. Good to see you guys too. We are produced by Ben Anderson and Pete Zimmerman. I’m John Williams, and we’ll drop another pot on you next week.
Eric Zorn
Good to see you mark . It was fun.
Austin Berg
Take care man.
Mark Jacob
Nice to meet you.
Elif Geris
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