Big corps not "fleeing" IL over $15/hr minimum wage after all.

Crain's begs Amazon: "Come to Chicago. We have plenty of low-paid workers here."

Last year we defeated the Rahm/Rahner plan to bring Amazon HQ2 into Chicago. Why? Because they are among the worst low-road, abusive, union-busting companies with the poorest working conditions of any corporation. Plus, we knew that their promise of 50,000 new jobs was BS. Plus, despite raking in superprofits, they would have ended up paying no state or city taxes to help support our schools and city services. Preckwinkle and Daley were the only mayoral candidates who supported Rahm's plan.

Good riddance, right?

Chicago being a strong union town, along with our push for a living wage, then led to a fear campaign in the media by Rahm/Rahner claiming that other companies would now flee the state and the city if we made them pay fair taxes and a living wage to their workers.

Fast forward --  With Rauner and Rahm gone, Gov. Pritzker signed a bill in February, passed in the IL Legislature, that would raise the state's minimum wage to $15/hr. Not a living wage, but good news just the same.

The bad news is that under the new law, minimum-wage workers won't see $15/hr under for six years. Why such a compromise with Republicans in a Democratic-dominated legislature? You'd have to ask the progressive house members who crafted the bill.

But now comes the news that since the passage of the bill, corporations are coming back to IL rather than running away. In fact last week, Amazon announced plans to open a fulfillment center in Channahon, Illinois, supposedly creating more than 500 new, full-time jobs. The project, developed by Venture One Real Estate, will add a new distribution center of over 1 million square feet in size—the sixth in Will County for the online retailer, after properties in Crest Hill, Joliet, Monee and Romeoville.

“Illinois is a great place to do business and we are excited to continue our growth and investment in the state with our new fulfillment center in Channahon,” said Alicia Boler Davis, Amazon’s vice president of global customer fulfillment. “Since 2010, Amazon has invested more than $4 billion in the state through its local fulfillment center and cloud infrastructure, research facilities and compensation to thousands of employees in the state. We are excited to create more than 500 new full-time jobs, in addition to the 11,000 current employees across the state, who receive industry-leading pay and benefits starting on day one.”

And this from Gov. Pritzker:

“This significant jobs announcement is another sign that Illinois’ future is bright, and I’m excited to see Amazon build on its investment in Illinois with 500 new jobs in the south suburbs,” said Governor J.B. Pritzker. “Illinois is the transportation hub of the Midwest, and our workforce is among the best in the world."

I guess the big corps like Amazon aren't scared off by Pritzker's Fair Tax initiative. I didn't think they would be, even with Indiana and Wisconsin right next door.

And the great irony is that starting salary at the new center will be (you guessed it) $15/hr. Six years before the new law takes full effect and with no union representation for workers.

This should also bring some organizing-the-unorganized jobs for union organizers.

Good riddance to the Charter School Commission

Acero teachers in Chicago won the first charter school strike in U.S. history last year. (Labor Notes pic)

Congratulations to all of us who worked so hard to finally get rid of the Illinois State Charter School Commission. We count our victories one by one.

A new law that goes into effect next year, will abolish the Commission and hopefully limit the wild expansion of privately-operated charter schools. That's the result of Senate Bill 1226, which Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law Aug. 23, over the objections of INCS and charter school lobbyists.  Gov. Rauner vetoed a similar bill last year.

The measure was sponsored by state Sen. Linda Holmes, an Aurora Democrat. Holmes made the case that decisions about charter schools, "belong in the community, not at the state level."

I agree. But even with the new law, we're not quite there yet.

Since 2011, when the Commision was established and signed into law by former Gov. Pat Quinn (yes a Democrat), I've worked with several struggling school districts around the state when they've  had to go before the Commission to plead their case. Together we built a research base which was used to debunk the false claims of the charter operators in an effort to stop invasions by powerful, charter school networks. In some cases we were successful and others we weren't.

I found the decisions by commission members to be be completely arbitrary and biased. Keep in mind that the commission was originally the dream of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and that the money for the commission’s original staffing and other expenses came from the pro-charter Walton Foundation. The Commission has been riddled with conflicts of interest from the start.

Commission members have been generally charter-friendly political appointees chosen by the governor and approved by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE). In the eight years prior to Pritzker's election, commission members were handpicked by Rauner, a right-wing governor hellbent on starving and ultimately taking over local school systems, including CPS, using charters and school vouchers as weapons.

But Rauner wasn't the only problem. You might remember when the Commission, acting under pressure from House Speaker Mike Madigan, reversed CPS's rejection of Concept (Gulen) charter schools' application at a time when the FBI was investigating Concept's operations. Records show that the Commission’s Springfield lobbyist, Liz Brown-Reeves, a former Madigan aide, accompanied him on his Gulen sponsored trip to Turkey in 2012.

Earlier this year, the commission approved two Chicago schools: Urban Prep, which the district had ordered closed, and the new citywide school run by Intrinsic.

Currently, there are 140 charter schools in Illinois, 126 of which operate within Chicago Public Schools diverting money, students and teachers away from regular CPS schools. So far there is no evidence that these charters outperform the CPS schools they are trying to replace. In the CPS budget for next year, the district expects to receive $4 million less funding than expected from the state this past school year because “diversions to schools approved by the Illinois State Charter School Commission (SCSC) were higher than expected.”

There are still problems with the new bill. While effectively ending the Commission, the bill shifts its power to reverse local district decisions back over to ISBE, which is also a governor-appointed board.

According to Chalkbeat:

The state board will take over the responsibility of hearing appeals on charter school openings, closings and extensions. The state also will dole out funds it had collected to oversee the schools that the commission had approved. Once the state board takes over the commission’s role, the board will be able to levy a 3% fee on any state-approved charter school to help cover the cost of oversight.

But hopefully, local districts will fare better under the new law and under this governor than under the previous one.

In any case, the struggle continues.

The mayor's current school board is a good one. How do we move on to an elected board?

The new board. 

Mayor Lightfoot has chosen some excellent people to fill the seats on the new Board of Education. It's a board that's dominated by progressives, including parents, ed activists and people, like Board Pres. Miguel del Valle, who see themselves as interim members until an elected board can be put in place.

What a change from the previous regime! No cronies or puppets on this board. As far as I can tell, no profiteers like Deborah Quazzo, using the board to enrich themselves. It's a board composed entirely of people of color and women. No white men. What a radical breach from the Chicago machine days.

As for Rep. Martwick's current Elected School Board bill, which was written without any input from the mayor, it is dead in the water. The start date under HB2267 is 2023, 4 yrs from now, at the end of Lightfoot’s first term, and it requires reauthorization even then. The coalition of ed activists, including RYH and the CTU, who drafted the bill, will have to go back to the drawing board and take into account the mayor's objections to the unwieldy size of the proposed board. Until then, the legislature isn't foolish enough to go against Chicago's first black, gay, woman mayor,  a mayor that has just won a landslide election and carried all 50 Chicago wards.

In remarks to the Sun-Times, del Valle raised the possibility that an elected board could be installed much more quickly than the four-year timeframe proposed in State Rep. Robert Martwick’s bill.

The current bill might have already been passed except for the fact that it's fatally flawed and even if passed, wouldn't take effect for four years or more. So we need a new bill that is reflective of the changes in the city and state political climate since the election.

Rahm Emanuel was the mayor and Republican Bruce Rauner was the governor. Some drafters of the current bill have admitted to me that the four-year ramp was the result of a compromise, a bone thrown to Rahm/Rauner. But they're both gone now. So a new compromise is in order if and when an elected board bill can be passed.

Unfortunately, some CTU leaders have turned their guns on Lightfoot over the issue. One goes so far as to claim that we don't need a good appointed board and that the mayor's new "okay" board is only a ruse, an attempt to pacify us and kill their elected school board bill.

Makes me wonder whether these union leaders are more interested in scoring some political points against a mayor they opposed in a vitriolic campaign, than they are in passing ESRB legislation? Some unity building is badly needed here. Let's see who's up to the task.

We'll be talking all about the mayor's board picks and an elected school board tomorrow, 11-noon on Hitting Left with the Klonsky Bros with in-studio guests Curtis Black and Jacqueline Serrato Flores from the Chicago Reporter. Tune in 11-noon CDT to WLPN 105.5 FM in Chicago. Streaming live at www.lumpenradio.com

Mayor Lightfoot is sticking with schools CEO Janice Jackson for now. That's a good thing.

There's hope that CEO Jackson, once liberated from Rahm's self-serving, autocratic rule, will become a real change leader. 

Even though I've had my issues with CEO Janice Jackson's role as Rahm Emanuel's front person on school closings and charter expansion and her opposition to an elected school board, I think the mayor made the right move here. To replace her now, especially in the middle of contract negotiations with the CTU, would only further destabilize a system already in a state of chaos.

Jackson was Rahm's 5th CEO in six years.

Remember how Rahm changed school chiefs like he changed wardrobes, including dumping J.C. Brizard in 2012, the middle of contract talks and replacing him with Barbara Byrd-Bennett. The result was the first teachers strike in 25 years followed by a regime so corrupt that BBB wound up in prison and scandal-ridden Forrest Claypool had to flee or risk following her.

There's the hope that Jackson, now liberated from Rahm's autocratic and self-serving brand of ed politics, can rediscover her educator roots and become a real change leader. I hope so.

Next on Mayor Lightfoot's agenda will be choosing a new school board and here is where wholesale change (draining the swamp) is necessary and I am told, coming.

What a shame that we still have to wait years before there's finally an elected school board in Chicago. Rep. Martwick's ESB bill, was badly written. Even if passed as is, (without considering questions about the board's unwieldy size, raised by the new mayor) it wouldn't take effect for four more years and then have to be reauthorized. The whole setup would be phased out after the 2027 election unless lawmakers in Springfield vote to extend it. What kind of law is that?

There's some good ed news coming from Springfield (did I really say that?). Yes, the State Charter School Commission is on the way out. The unelected Commission has the power to override decisions made by local school boards that reject charter applications. A Democrat-backed bill passed the Senate in April, and a vote is expected in the House before the legislative session ends May 31, despite opposition from INCS and charter school lobbyists. Gov. Pritzker has said he’ll sign the bill. Gov. Rauner vetoed a similar bill last year.

Also House Bill 424, the bill that requires the ISBE to establish standards for interpreters for non-English speaking parents, passed the Illinois Senate yesterday on a vote of 53 yes, 0 nos, and 0 abstentions. The bill will now go to Pritzker for his signature.

Change is in the air.

Victories in WI & IL Gov Races leave educators relieved

Tony Evers and Mandela Barnes

Many Illinois and Wisconsin educators are breathing sighs of relief this morning.

Democrats swept the floor clean in yesterday's IL election, tossing one-term governor, Bruce Rauner out on his ear. It was Rauner who used his veto power to hold the state's education budget hostage for nearly three years, relenting only after Chicago's mayor, Rahm Emanuel agreed to bring vouchers into the system. Rauner lost to billionaire J.B. Pritzker and  in the most expensive ($284M) gov's race in history.

Now that boss Mike Madigan has a veto-proof, supermajority in Springfield, Dems have no excuses on adequate school funding, cap on charter expansion and elected school board for Chicago. Let's see if any of that happens.

The victory also means the state will see its first African-American lieutenant governor in state Rep. Juliana Stratton.

In neighboring WI, right-wing bag-'o-crap Gov. Scott Walker was finally given the boot. Walker busted the state's teacher unions and led the assault on the once-great, state university system. It was only right that he lost, in a close race, to Tony Evers, the state's school superintendent and running mate, former state Rep. Mandela Barnes (great name), who will become the state's first African-American lieutenant governor.

The loss probably puts the kibosh on Walker's presidential ambitions. Although who knows?...Republicans elected two congressman facing federal indictments, a dead pimp, and gave 53,000 votes to an open nazi yesterday.

Barnes quote: "We are bringing education back to the state of Wisconsin. We are bringing science back to the state of Wisconsin and we will bring equality back to the state of Wisconsin."

Brother Fred and I will be summing up yesterday's elections Friday on Hitting Left with in-studio guests, Rebecca Sive, author of Vote For Her: A Manifesto, and Cassie Walker-Burke, Chicago bureau chief for Chalkbeat. Tune in at 11 a.m. CT to WLPN 105.5 FM, streaming live at www.lumpenradio.com 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Stevie Wonder closes out Aretha's funeral. 

Rev. William Barber

Aretha's singing challenged the dangling discords of hate and lies and racism and injustice. Her singing was liberation and revolution in the major key. -- Aretha Franklin's homegoing

CTU Acting President Jesse Sharkey

"Bruce Rauner's front group [IPI] is asking CTU members to walk away from our power, and our members have an answer: no way, not now, not ever." -- 1IL

D.T.

"They want to raid Medicare to pay for socialism," he says. The crowd cheers. -- Crooks & Liars

Jesse Jackson

Kaepernick’s grievance — if the courts are not as intimidated by Trump’s tantrums as the owners were — will expose the self-evident collusion that has locked him out of the league. -- Sun-Times

Gerde Schmidt, retired receptionist 

“I’m used to the neo-Nazis, but not seeing my neighbour or the plumber mixing with them in broad daylight. You can’t rule out anyone being here.” -- Fear in Chemnitz

Mayor Rahm Emanuel

Wall: "If that was an option you might consider CPS for your kids?Emanuel: Again I want to say my job as mayor is for taking care of Chicago's children, my children are Amy and my responsibility we'll make the decision. I don't really think that's the question." -- Interview with ABC News

You know you’re a #UnionGirl when “Solidarity Forever” is on your workout mix.

— Erika Wozniak (@ErikaWozniak) September 1, 2018

Crain's to Amazon. Won't you please come to Chicago. We've got cheap labor.

"Chicago's low pay scales and big labor pool rank it tops for Amazon's HQ2", says Crain's.

Crain's let the cat out of the bag about Chicago's pitch for Amazon's HQ2. We already knew that Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Gov. Bruce Rauner were offering Amazon over $2B in tax incentives and prime city real estate to move their second headquarters here.

In return, Chicago was supposed to get 50,000 new "high paying" jobs. I don't know how many people actually believe the mayor's B.S. Looking at his and Rauner's poll numbers, there's probably not very many. But if you are one of them, please take a look at the Crain's Chicago Business above-the-fold story this week. It will reveal that the real pitch city corporate leaders are making to Amazon CEO and world's richest man, Jeff Bezos is cheap labor.

According to Crain's, Amazon is more cost-sensitive than most tech companies since it imposes a strict cap on salaries and Chicago can offer Bezos a large skilled labor pool that includes research analysts, techies, and mid-level managers who are among the lowest-paid in the nation.

Chicago also has seen lower wage inflation than many HQ2 semifinalists. Last year, annual pay here rose 1.6 percent, half the rate in Seattle. It's the silver lining in the cloud that has been hanging over the Chicago economy for the past decade. Relatively slow growth in wages and housing values frustrates people already here, but it looks good to employers and employees being squeezed hard by inflation. 

 High-paying tech companies in a small market can drive up wages for nontech jobs, too. Managers in administrative services, HR, training and development, marketing, and sales cost 10 to 19 percent more in Austin than Chicago. Tech-sales workers make 50 percent more in Austin, and market research analysts make 35 percent more. 

In other words, the mayor is selling Chicago's workers to Bezos at a cheap price and without (he hopes) bothersome unions. But the city doesn't need and shouldn't want a company that comes here on those terms.

Searching for my inner civil self in these difficult times

Protests rocked Chicago following the Laquan McDonald shooting and the cover-up that followed. 

Responding to liberal critics of incivility, I'm trying to get back in touch with my inner civil self. Not like all those "McCarthyites" on the Vineyard who are shunning poor Alan Dershowitz or that mean old bartender in D.C. who flipped off Trump's racist-in-chief, Stephen Miller. Miller got so upset, he tossed his sushi. What a waste.

I'm now looking for common ground with political foes like Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Gov. Rauner. I'm even offering to mediate the rift that broke out between the two over Saturday's anti-violence protest on the Dan Ryan which ended with each telling the other to "shut down" their Twitter accounts.

It was a peaceful protest. Delete your account. https://t.co/QoKyIHmuQj

— Mayor Rahm Emanuel (@ChicagosMayor) July 7, 2018

C'mon fellas. remember, you're long-time business partners. Rahm, Bruce even donated thousands to your campaign warchest. You both gonna let a little expressway disruption get in the way of millions in profits?

Remember, you two will always have Montana. 

My message to both of you: Remember, there will always be Montana and that thousand-dollar bottle of Napa Valley wine you two shared.

Believe it or not, I've also found some common ground with Rahm's former police superintendent, Garry McCarthy, who is now his number-one, great-white-hope opponent in the mayor's race.

McCarthy, who was Rahm's top cop during the Laquan McDonald killing and cover-up by Chicago cops, now says, he opposes spending $95M on a new police & fire academy.

So do I, but for different reasons.

Here's the part I agree with:

“This police academy is a shiny object that Rahm Emanuel can point to and say, `I’m all about police reform.’ It’s for political purposes — not functional purposes,“ McCarthy said.

 “I could find much better ways to spend that money that would have a much greater impact on what’s happening in Chicago. … I’d use that $95 million to put social services and mental health centers back in communities that need them the most.”

Here's where I don't:

McCarthy contends that there is no new training needed and that CPD is doing a fine job. He was at odds with the Justice Department's report which came out in 2015, when Emanuel was forced by a judge’s order to release video of white Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting Laquan McDonald, a black teen, 16 times. The report found CPD’s training to be sorely lacking.

That dispute forced Rahm to throw his top cop under the bus. Hunger for revenge appears to be what drove McCarthy to enter the race. He will likely draw votes from largely-white wards on the northwest and southwest sides where lots of cops and firefighters live.

I of course, don't agree that CPD is doing a fine job. I don't even buy the "few bad apples" theory which would also, by the way, make a new training academy unnecessary.

The ongoing shooting of unarmed black men, women a children by mainly white Chicago cops is part of an institutionalized culture of entrenched racism within the department which is, at worst cultivated and encouraged and at best, tolerated by the mayor, department heads like McCarthy, and the FOP.

In other words, this isn't really a "training problem", but one calling for more radical solutions which need come directly from the communities most impacted by police misconduct.

It's not that I'm against a sparkling new police training academy in principle. It's just not high on my priority list, given the current state of public school buildings and other city infrastructure needs.

I don't think any of the mayoral candidates have real handle on the problem. But I am intrigued by the idea of a gay, progressive African-American woman like Lori Lightfoot, who Rahm appointed president of the Chicago Police Board, giving the mayor and McCarthy a run for their money in the most recent polls.  According to those polls, taken in April, 62% of those surveyed want someone, anyone besides Rahm as mayor.

I'm with the 62%. I would sooner vote for Pigasus ('68 reference there) than for either McCarthy or Rahm. Still searching for my civil side on those two.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

CPS student, Tamara Reed

“I dreaded going to school. I cried every night." -- Chicago Tribune

Lori Lightfoot

 “This tragedy happened because of incompetency at the highest levels. Who are we as a city if we accept this as just another scandal du jour at CPS?” -- Politico

Study

This household-based survey suggests that the number of excess deaths related to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico is more than 70 times the official estimate. -- New England Journal of Medicine

John Boehner

“There is no Republican Party. There’s a Trump party." -- Politico

Rudy Giuliani

Trump could have shot Comey and still couldn't be indicted. “If he shot James Comey, he’d be impeached the next day. "Impeach him, and then you can do whatever you want to do to him.” -- Huffington

Natasha Korecki on cost of IL gov's race

"How many Hulu ads can you buy?" -- Illinois Playbook

Chicago Public Schools has failed to protect students from sexual abuse and assault, a Tribune investigation has found. Reporters identified hundreds of cases in the last decade, attacks that left students feeling betrayed and wounded. https://t.co/396Q42bApm https://t.co/NDiwoWVtip

— Juan Perez Jr. (@PerezJr) June 1, 2018

On election day: It's not about, in pols we trust.

Biss on Hitting Left

It's election day in Illinois and in the governor's race, the choices are woeful. Like many on the left, I had hoped that Bernie Sanders' stunning performance here in his statewide 2016 race against Hillary Clinton, would have led to movement-backed, candidates (preferably not just rich, male and white). But the divisions in the progressive left and in the labor movement, the powerful hold of old Democratic machine politics, and fear of Republican Bruce Rauner's billions in this, the most expensive gov's race in history, left us where we are now on election day. We've got three traditional Democrats to choose from. 

Let me say upfront that I early voted for State Sen. Daniel Biss in the Democratic primary. I say that unapologetically, even though I've been among the sharpest Biss critics ever since he and state Democrats engineered passage of an unconstitutional bill that would have slashed the pensions of public school teachers. But given the choices and the fact that Biss came on our radio show and was openly and sincerely self-critical about his vote and his "succumbing to the culture of Springfield", I gave him my vote.

A pol who feels our heat, responds to criticism and changes their position and their votes, is the best we can hope for. Much better, in my opinion, than campaign promises by born-again "progressives".

If you know me, you know I couldn't have voted for billionaire J.B. Pritzker (my god, he's got millions invested in the oil pipeline company we fought in Standing Rock) or for former U of I chief Trustee Chris Kennedy (reasons here. I even tried my best to defend him here, but...). Many liberals are still enamored with the Kennedy family name. Not me. And as an educator, I was repulsed by his attempt to destroy the careers of U of I faculty with whom he disagreed politically.

I also voted for or supported other progressives like: Chuy Garcia and Marie Newman for congress, Fritz Kaegi for county assessor in his run at machine boss Joe Berrios, Brandon Johnson for county board, Aaron Goldstein for AG, Delia Ramirez, and others in local races.

Yesterday on FB, my friend and announced 2019 mayoral candidate Troy LaRaviere, proclaimed his support for Kennedy for a reason that bewilders me.

I found myself going back and forth between two of the three frontrunners, unable to make a choice about whom to endorse. Then one morning, my partner, Margaret, said to me “Forget about endorsements for a minute…. If the election were today, which one would you vote for?”
“Kennedy”
Without a moment of hesitation, I said that name. Kennedy
Then she asked an even more important question: “Why?”
“Because I trust him.”

Now as we head into the final day of voting, with the Democratic governor's race tightening (only single digits separate Pritzker, Kennedy and Biss in the latest polls) and with no longer any guarantee that Democrats can come back together and defeat Rauner, I'm left with this thought.

Politics is not about "trust". It's not a spectator sport where we vote and then hope to god that the Democrats we elect will do the right thing. They rarely do. And when they do, it's because we are there, as always, in the streets or on the picket line, ready to take them on when they don't.

Harold Washington told us that, the day after he was elected as the city's first black mayor.

How many selves does Pritzker have?

"I was not my best self", claims Pritzker. 

The IL governor's race may be the most expensive in history. But while the two largely self-funded billionaires in the race may still win their respective primaries, they are both losing more credibility with every dollar they spend on their own campaigns

The week started with the announcement that an open nazi, Arthur Jones, was on the cusp of claiming the GOP nomination in the state's 3rd congressional district, and went downhill from there.

Incumbent Gov. Bruce Rauner is now rapidly losing ground to alt-right neophyte candidate Jeanne Ives, whose current disgusting racist, transphobic, anti-abortion, and anti-immigrant ads are stirring the downstate Republican base in a way reminiscent of the 2016 Trump campaign.

The base feels betrayed by faux-Republican and Rahm Emanuel drinking-buddy Rauner, who signed a measure to expand taxpayer-subsidized abortions after promising he would veto the bill. Now Ives, echoing Trump, Bannon, and the fascist Jones,and backed by right-wing billionaire Dick Uihlein, is promising to deliver "the revolution" they've all been waiting for. Uihlein, a former Rauner donor, was the top donor to racist, child molester AL Senate candidate Roy Moore.

Rauner, taking his primary victory for granted, had been spending millions on ads directed not at Ives, but at Democrat billionaire and primary frontrunner J.B. Pritzker. The ads, using FBI wiretaps of Pritzker talking to then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich, have been effective in tearing away Pritzker's progressive cover.

Fred Klonsky toon. 

In the latest ad, you can hear Pritzker leveraging his status as a huge party campaign donor, to encourage Blago to choose "least-offensive" African-American candidate Jesse White to fill Barack Obama's open senate seat. 

“I’m sure you thought of this one, but Jesse White,” Pritzker tells then Gov. Rod Blagojevich. “Even though I know you guys aren’t like, you know, bosom buddies or anything, it covers you on the African-American thing.”

“Correct,” Blagojevich replies. “(White)’s totally, he’s totally, you know, uh, he’s Senate material in a way that Emil Jones isn’t, if I may say,' Pritzker says … 'But if you’re forced to put an African-American in the spot, which my guess is, you’re not forced to do anything, but my guess is a lot of pressure to do it, of all the African-Americans I can think that are sort of like qualified and vetted and people will say, ‘Oh, that’s, you know, that’s that’s a pretty good pick,’ the one that’s least offensive and maybe gets you the most because it gets you that secretary of state appointment is Jesse White,’ Pritzker tells Blagojevich.”

With his private racist comments laid bare, Pritzker is now in damage-control mode. In his defense, and flanked by a small coterie of African-American party loyalists and beneficiaries of Pritzker largesse, including Jesse White, City Treasurer Kurt Summers and Aldermen Pat Dowell, Michael Scott and Walter Burnett, Pritzker claims,

"On that call, I was not my best self."

Wrong response. It raises the question of how many "selfs" does  Pritzker have? The real one is usually the one that comes out when others aren't listening. (Or when you think no one's listening.)

The beneficiary of all this seems to be State Sen. Dan Biss who's become the main target of  Pritzker's own ads and who, despite them, has now cut into Pritzker's lead in the polls. Despite our past sharp differences, Biss has become my pick in the guv's race.

Says Biss:

“For too long our broken system has allowed the wealthy to have unfettered access to the decision-makers in our government,” Biss said in a statement. “That’s what breeds corruption. And when that access involves two wealthy white men making political calculations based on skin color, that’s what perpetuates a racist system.”

He's got that right. It's another example of what can happen when billionaires, used to buying politicians, become one themselves.  

The late Rev. Walker and his charter school in Harlem

Rev. Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker in Harlem

I didn't know the Rev. Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker personally, but I knew of him and admired his work, his dedication and brilliance as a heroic '60s civil rights movement strategist and aide to Dr. King, supporter of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and later as Harlem community organizer. I was deeply saddened by his death.

While nothing diminishes my respect for Rev. Walker during that period, it's clear that at a later point in his life, his perspective changed. He became a community investment banker and real estate developer. His disdain for the lack of decent, affordable housing and education options in the black community led him to become a supporter of charter schools and school vouchers. In 1999 he helped establish and lent his name to the state's first charter school, the Sisulu-Walker Charter School (named also for the South African anti-apartheid leader Walter Sisulu).

*****

As readers of this blog know, I am not a supporter of either privately-run charters or school vouchers. But back in the mid-90's our Small Schools Workshop was an incubator for some of the first small charter schools in Chicago that opened in 1997. That was back when charters were organized and led by union teachers as a hoped-for critical force for innovation within the public school system.

How times have changed. In recent years, charters have been captured by politically-connected networks run, not by teachers, but mostly by anti-union boards of wealthy, corporate, pro-privatization patrons who have garnered support from within both recent Democrat and Republican administrations and their departments of education -- from Arne Duncan to Betsy DeVos. Billions of dollars have been diverted from public schools to support these networks. Teachers have been disempowered and left without union representation and collective bargaining rights.

But I still try to seperate my critical opposition to charter expansion from my support for charter school teachers, parents and students. I'm encouraged by union organizing efforts on the part of charter teachers and by the coming merger in Chicago between the CTU with and the Chicago Assoc.of Charter School Teachers (ChiACTS).

*****

The Sisulu-Walker Charter School of Harlem (formerly Sisulu Children's Academy-Harlem Public Charter School, and its for-profit management company, Victory Schools) initially drew rave reviews and drew backing from wealthy investors like venture capitalist Steven Klinsky. It's opening-day ceremonies were attended by Pres. George W. Bush (then Texas governor), Governor George Pataki, Secretary of State Randy Daniels and other national, state and local dignitaries. In 2009, Mayor Bloomberg celebrated the school’s 10th anniversary by demanding an end to the state cap on charters.

It was Klinsky, with no background in education, who started for-profit Victory Schools, Inc., made high-interest loans to the school and decided the curriculum for Sisulu-Walker would be Direct Instruction (DI). It was soon claimed to be one of the top performing public charter schools in all of Manhattan based on student test scores.

But it was only a matter of time before the "luster faded", ratings fell, Klinsky's money dried up and foundations backed away. Like so many charters, it was also beset with financial mis-management issues, teacher and principal turnover, and student recruitment violations.

Sisulu-Walker had five principals in its first decade, and the state put the school on probation in 2004. After the charter was renewed, a 6th principal, Michelle Haynes, came in 2012.

[Victory's]show place charter school, Sisulu-Walker Charter School of Harlem, received the 15th-lowest score on the 2010 city progress report cards, ranking in the bottom one percent of all schools. It received “F’ grades in the school environment and progress categories. Most of the school’s teachers reported problems with order and discipline and they recently voted to unionize. (Huffington)

And unionize they did. 

No need to go on. Those who have followed the ongoing saga of school privatization can anticipate the rest. Despite its name and all the ballyhoo surrounding its opening, in the final analysis Sisulu-Walker offered nothing more innovative and no better learning environment that the neighborhood schools Rev. Walker had criticized. Life conditions for the neighborhood's poorest families grew worse and many were forced to leave Harlem. If anything, Harlem's charters were used to gentrify the neighborhood rather than a serious attempt and public school reform.

Hopefully things will change under new leadership and with the empowerment of the school's teachers.

My point here is that we celebrate the life and mourn the death of Rev. Walker despite our differences. Times and conditions bring out the best and worst in all of us.

Rauner asked, 'Is David Duke a racist?' He dodges like Trump did.

 "Just so you understand, I don't know anything about David Duke, OK?" he said. "I don't know anything about what you're even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists." -- Donald Trump, Feb. 2016

Remember when candidate Donald Trump refused to condemn the KKK and specifically David Duke as racists? It certainly was a harbinger of things to come.

Fast forward to the current race for governor in IL where racism and the push-out of thousands of the state's African-American families are among the hot campaign issues. It's deja vu all over again.

WVON's Maze Jackson and his morning show co-host, veteran Chicago newsman Charles Thomas, (a former guest on on Hitting Left) asks Gov. Rauner if Donald Trump and/or David Duke can be considered racists?

It went down like this...

MAZE JACKSON: “The President of the United States used language that we’ve never heard before, we call – we said he said ‘shitolee’ on this show. You heard his comments. Is Donald Trump racist? Is he a racist?”

RAUNER: “I’ll say this. That language has no place in our political conversation.”

 JACKSON: “But is he a racist?” 

RAUNER: “That language has no place in our political conversation.”

JACKSON: “But we’ve got it. We heard it. He said it. So it’s in the universe. So, to a – to the Haitians that live in this city, in the state – what’s up with Donald Trump? How do you respond to that?” 

RAUNER: “That language has no place in our political conversation.” 

CHARLES THOMAS: “But you won’t call him a racist?” 

RAUNER: “No place.” 

THOMAS: “Is David Duke a racist? I mean, is… what about Donald Trump? 

RAUNER: “You know what? We have racists in our society. We have got to come together to change the system in Illinois. Illinois is broken. Our system is broken. African American families are suffering in Illinois. It’s worse than anywhere with unemployment. We have got to change our system.”

So shameless Rauner, who has a wing-nut Republican on his right and Democrats on his...you decide, won't publicly call out racism in its most obvious form for fear of alienating what remains of his right-wing, downstate base. Now he's suddenly for overthrowing the whole system.

Trying to avoid total embarrassment, we later hear this from a Rauner staff member:

“The governor believes that David Duke is a racist,” Justin Giorgio, a spokesman for Rauner’s campaign, said later in an email. “As he stated in his interview this morning, the governor is working to bring all Illinoisans together to overcome the racism that exists in our society.”

For all this slip-sliding and evasion, Rauner gets a personal thank you from the former Grand Dragon himself.

Friday's show. What I would have asked Delia.

I thoroughly enjoyed today's show for two reasons.

The first was watching my brother Fred's first day at the controls as producer. With a day of training under his belt, Fred sailed the Hitting Left ship successfully off to sea, proving you can teach an old dog some new tricks. Congrats bro.

Second, was having Delia Ramirez, candidate for state rep in IL Dist. 4, as our in-studio guest. She proved to be a lively and forthright guest and handled herself well under pressure (we don't do puff on HL). I came away thinking this Prosser High School alum with deep roots in the neighborhood, will make a great rep. Thanks Delia.

Delia Ramirez

I regret that time ran out before I could ask her what she thought about Gov. Rauner's veto of the state's school funding bill, a measure that was designed to clear the way for a major overhaul of how the state distributes dollars to public schools.

Yes that's the very same bill that overcame Rauner's earlier veto and passed easily through the legislature back in August, with Rauner and the Republican caucus, following the lead of Madigan, Cullerton, Rahm Emanuel and the rest of the state's Democratic leadership, down the school privatization path. The trade-off for school funding for the Democrats was acceptance of the state's first school voucher program.

Under that program, individuals and corporations can give money for scholarships to private schools in exchange for a tax credit worth 75% of their donation.

Rauner not only signed the bill, but then took credit for its passage.

But now that the bill has become law, Rauner has used his amendatory power to once again veto it in a so-called "trailer bill". Weird, I know. (Can he do that, Delia?). It seems he now wants to lower the bar and include even more unvetted and unauthorized private schools in the feast at the public trough.

I wanted to get Delia's thoughts on how she as a legislator would work to resist this unethical and probably illegal assault by the governor on public education funding. But alas, time ran out and even having Fred at the control board couldn't change that.

If you missed today's show, you can listen to it here on Mixcloud. 

Why I can't vote for Pritzker

Gassing the water protectors

“JB personally and through his businesses and trusts has both active and passive investments in many different economic sectors,” Pritzker spokeswoman Galia Slayen said. “If elected, JB is committed to putting in place best practices to ensure that no conflicts ever exist.”

It's not just that he's another white male billionaire. No, I've more or less made peace with that, given the record high cost of running for governor and that there are no women or people of color in the race with a realistic chance of defeating Public Enemy #1,Gov. Bruce Rauner.

And it's not just that J.B. Pritzker, a partner in the union-busting Hyatt Hotel chain, is another mainstream Democrat who is bound to sell out the very unions that have rallied behind him. After the pension-theft debacle with Gov. Quinn, I've almost gotten used to that.

Company thugs set dogs on DAPL protesters.

I guess the killer for me was when I read the Sun-Times this morning and learned that Pritzker, like Donald Trump, is a big investor in Energy Transfer Partners LP, the pipeline operator that constructed and is a part owner of the Dakota Access Pipeline. That's the notorious pipeline which carries oil underground, through Native American sacred burial grounds, from North Dakota all the way to an oil tank farm near Patoka, Illinois.Yes, the very same company that turned hired thugs and vicious dogs on the water protectors at Standing Rock.

Yes, I know that candidate Chris Kennedy, who has tried to rebrand himself as a leftist, is also a global capitalist with major investments in oil and defense companies. He even stands to profit from his holdings in Amazon, the corporation that Rauner and Rahm Emanuel are trying to lure, with huge tax breaks, to Chicago.

At Standing Rock with Chicago students.

I have disliked Kennedy ever since he used his position as head of the Univ. of IL Board of Trustees to tarnish or destroy the careers of educators like Bill Ayers and Steven Salaita because of their political views.

But Standing Rock is where I draw the line. I went to Standing Rock twice last year, once with a dozen Chicago neighborhood high school students, to join the protests. The time spent there left an indelible mark on me and on those students. For over a year an international movement has called on cities, universities and other investors to divest--to get rid of their holdings connected to the Energy Transfer Partners and to the Dakota Access Pipeline.  So the fact that J.B. Pritzker fattens up his investment portfolio with pipeline blood money makes it impossible for me to vote for him, much less support him.

I'm hoping against hope that Dan Biss can pull an upset in the primary and go on to defeat Rauner.

What Paul Vallas learned early about the school reform biz

Rauner gives Vallas fat contract to fix Chicago State.

“High-performing individuals with decades of specialized experience and knowledge do not limit their ability to contribute to the greater good." -- Paul Vallas

Paul Vallas was never an educator, but he was a quick study. He learned from the start of his stint as Mayor Daley's schools CEO in 1995, the power of government contracting and that there was good money to be made in the school reform business. He also came to believe that the future of school reform belonged not to the system's bureaucrats, but to the outsider corporate reformers, wealthy, powerful, self-interested billionaires and outside consultants who they patronized.

After Daley gave him the boot from Chicago and through a series of unremarkable stints as district school chiefs in Philly, New Orleans and Bridgeport, Vallas assembled a team of loyalists (mostly former Chicago school bureaucrats) and developed a strategy for injecting himself and his brand into struggling urban school districts, in order to do "the greater good". The game plan involved using political clout to place his lieutenants into power in selected districts and in return, having them bring in the big-ticket Vallas Group to "reform" district schools from the top-down. It also included a heavy dose of replacing public schools with privately-run charters and weakening or completely eliminating union collective-bargaining agreements.

It was a plan that included perks and kick-backs to district leaders as in the case of former Vallas partner Gary Solomon, who along with former Chicago schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett, is now doing heavy prison time on fraud and corruption charges in the Chicago SUPES scandal.

Byrd-Bennett worked as a consultant and lead teacher for The Supes Academy and worked as a consultant for Synesi Associates, the consulting company founded by Vallas and Solomon. Vallas not only hired Solomon and his companies when he worked in Philadelphia, but brought Solomon with him to New Orleans.

From an earlier Sun-Times story:

Urging that the then-newly formed Synesi be hired in 2007, Vallas told officials the New Orleans school system didn’t have anyone who could do the work, according to documents from the New Orleans district. And in his “justification for an external contractor” letter, he urged that Solomon’s company be hired without seeking competitive bids.

Sun-Times reporter Dan Mihalopoulos broke a story Friday, exposing the unlikely relationship between Vallas, the erstwhile Chicago Democrat Party machine operative, and billionaire Republican and future governor of IL, Bruce Rauner. Actually, a bit of old news. But he evaded the whole Vallas/Solomon connection.

Nearly seven years ago — when Rauner wasn’t yet a politician, just a wealthy private investor with an interest in public education and a friend in the mayor’s office — Vallas corresponded with and met with him, offering to help create what he described as an “ambitious new school district” in Chicago.

In three letters to Rauner in 2010 and 2011, Vallas offered to work for with Rauner and city officials. Vallas said that school “buildings would be provided to the charters at no cost.”

“Concerning our potential partnership, I would welcome the opportunity to contract with you to assist with your school reform efforts in Chicago,” Vallas wrote to Rauner in February 2011, when Vallas was the top schools official in New Orleans.

 “You once told me that if I ever decided to launch a domestic education business, you would be willing to invest,” Vallas told Rauner. “Based on my research and years in the education field, I firmly believe this is a can’t miss.”

Vallas now claims that nothing came of the plans he and Rauner discussed for the Chicago schools and that his offers to assist CPS, "were rebuffed, as leadership chose to follow Barbara Byrd-Bennett’s vision for the district."

A lot has changed since Vallas first solicited Rauner. Vallas lost his bid to become Lt. Gov of IL and in the process, became a factor in Pat Quinn's election loss to Rauner in the governor's race.

Under the15-month contract Rauner has given Vallas to lead an economic recovery at Chicago State, he is still allowed to continue his private work with the Vallas Group.

Here's what Mihalopoulos' story left out...

Actually BBB's "vision" was Gary Solomon's vision and Solomon's vision was Vallas'. Same dreams but different beds. Solomon’s consulting company advertised that it had “the exclusive rights to Paul Vallas’ model of education reform.” In Philadelphia, he marketed the consulting company as using the “Paul Vallas method of school reform.”

In Chicago, Solomon used his former partner's strategy of installing BBB as schools CEO and then kicking-back to her after she gave SUPES and $20M contract to do principal training.

Solomon later said he used Vallas’ name without permission and it was a “mistake.”

But Vallas had used a similar approach in Rockford, St. Louis, Philly, Rochester, Peoria and other districts and greased the wheels for the Synesi group. Synesi landed two no-bid contracts worth nearly $893,000 in New Orleans during Vallas’ time running the Recovery School District from 2007 to 2011.

Vallas calls his involvement with Solomon in New Orleans a “non-story.” He also says, “New Orleans honored me with the key to the city, while those involved in CPS are about to be locked up.”

He's right and this says a lot about our justice system and media's reluctance to make the connection.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Tom Balanoff

SEIU Local 1 President Tom Balanoff 

“Your recent singling-out of  [Hannah] Jubeh highlights a sexist mindset toward women that has no place in politics, the labor movement or anywhere else in society. It denotes a hostility toward women who refuse to ‘fall in line’ with their male counterparts. … We demand an apology for your unacceptable behavior.” -- Letter to AFL-CIO President Michael Carrigan

Rex Tillerson

"I checked. I’m fully intact." -- AP Wire 

Paul Vallas to Bruce Rauner

 “Concerning our potential partnership, I would welcome the opportunity to contract with you to assist with your school reform efforts in Chicago....“You once told me that if I ever decided to launch a domestic education business, you would be willing to invest. Based on my research and years in the education field, I firmly believe this is a can’t miss.” -- Sun-Times 

King County Executive Dow Constantine

 “Being a billionaire right-wing donor should not give you license to take a sledgehammer to the foundation of equal opportunity. No, it should not. But here she is. American prosperity, really American democracy, are built on the bedrock of universal education.” -- At DeVos protest 

Amazon's promise of '50,000 new jobs' for Chicago is bunkum

A week ago I posted about Amazon not being the kind of company Chicago needs. But Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Gov. Bruce Rauner continue to grovel before the king of e-commerce offering huge tax and real estate giveaways that will only push the state and city into more debt, hurting schools and wiping outpensions. All this in the hope that Amazon will bring "50,000 jobs" to the city.

Sadly, most local pols, including Democrats running to replace Rauner, have drunk the Amazon jobs koolade. So has the media for the most part. On Friday, a planted Amazon good-news story claims the company is about to hire 10,000 holiday workers in IL.

Amazon is hiring more than 120,000 seasonal workers nationwide, including 10,000 new employees in Illinois. That means jobs at local fulfillment centers, sortation centers and customer service sites — and some of those positions could become permanent, according to Amazon. 

What's left out of the Patch piece is that these are non-union, mostly minimum-wage jobs offering most of these workers little or no chance for full-time employment. The work is mind-numbing and repetitive. 50-hour weeks are not uncommon and managers are continually relocated.

As for the claim that thousands of seasonal workers were given full-time jobs last year, it's important to remember that good-paying "full-time" jobs with Amazon are not usually permanent jobs and that those few who are hired full-time are usually replacing some of the thousands who quit or are fired each year.

In fact, Amazon has the second highest worker/turnover rate of any of the Fortune 500 companies. Turning over a big chunk of the workforce each year (most new-hires are gone after just nine months) saves the corporation millions of dollars on benefits like medical coverage and paid vacation days.

Amazon has built its empire around fast shipping speeds and generous return policies. But little is said of it's "dangerously intense internal company culture".

Last year, Bloomberg reported that the company was using flat-screen televisions in its warehouses to shame workers for alleged theft. The workers are not identified by name; rather, they are shown as black silhouettes with the word “terminated” or “arrested” emblazoned before an account of what they stole from the company and how they got caught. In the absence of a TV monitor, workers told Bloomberg that similar information was posted on walls or bulletin boards around the office.

A former Amazon contract worker wrote this, in an open letter to CEO Jeff Bezos:

There’s a lot of talk about how Amazon is a great place to work. They have showers in the basement. You can get your bike serviced while you work. And there’s food trucks! But if you really want to create a positive work environment and generate productivity and employee loyalty, give your employees some job security.

That's not likely to happen. Amazon, stay away.

Why Amazon is not the kind of company Chicago needs

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Gov. Bruce Rauner are BFFs again. What brings the pair of Republicrat drinking buddies back together after some highly publicized spats, including personal name-calling, are school vouchers, more and bigger tax breaks for the rich, and Amazon.

Both of them, along with all but a few state and city pols, have been prostrating themselves before the Seattle-based king of global e-commerce, offering up some of the city's best real estate and a virtual tax-free existence if the low-road, parasitic company will only agree to open its second headquarters in IL, and bring "50,000 jobs" to Chicago.

Where have we heard those kinds of wild promises before? Think Olympic Games or Boeing's move here from Seattle in 2001, which, despite Mayor Daley's overblown promises, produced only a few hundred jobs and little in the way of taxes.

Ben Joravsky writes:

While 50,000 jobs sounds great, Chicago's got a checkered history when it comes to companies making good on job promises. The most infamous case was Republic Windows and Doors. In the 1990s, the city gave Republic more than $10 million in tax increment financing money to build a factory on Goose Island that would employ at least 610 people. In 2008, Republic closed the factory but got to keep the TIF cash.

Amazon's founder, CEO and Trump clone, Jeff Bezos  claims that his company is going to invest more than $5 billion to create a second headquarters in a city like Chicago. He says the move will produce thousands of high-paying jobs over the next 10 to 15 years. And all he wants in return is free land and billions in corporate tax incentives. Bezos has been playing the same game for years.

When Bezos was first deciding where to base his new e-commerce business in 1995, Seattle was not his first choice. Instead, according to Newsweek, the CEO of Amazon, now the world’s largest online store, eyed a Native American reservation near San Francisco that would have considerably lowered his tax bill.

The state of California quashed that scheme, but Bezos’s zeal for tax avoidance did not stop there. Throughout much of Amazon’s more than 20-year history, he has carved out competitive tax positions for the company as it expanded globally. His business acumen in that regard has even attracted the wrath of presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who earlier this year accused Bezos of buying The Washington Post to gain political influence and avoid taxes. During a speech in Texas, Trump said, “If I become president, oh do they have problems. They’re going to have such problems.” 

Boy, did he lie. Bezos, with a net worth of more than $45 billion, pulls down and annual salary, including stock options, of nearly $2 million. That's a small part of what's local taxpayers are paying for if Amazon is allowed to ride virtually tax-free.

More from Newsweek:

Amazon’s IRS case in the U.S., which could force it to pay more than $1.5 billion in unpaid taxes, has revealed some findings that are, at best, awkward for the company. According to court documents, Amazon hired an economist from the global financial advisory company Deloitte in 2001 to review the various approaches that could be adopted to reduce its taxes.

Bezos is also a big backer of charter schools and other school privatization schemes in the state of Washington. According to a report in the Nation, the Bezos Foundation has donated to Education Reform Now, a nonprofit organization that funds attack advertisements against teachers’ unions and other advocacy efforts to promote test-based evaluations of teachers. Education Reform Now also sponsors Democrats for Education Reform (DFER).

Other education philanthropy supported by the Bezos Foundation include KIPP, Teach for America and many individual charter schools, including privately funded math and science programs across the country.

Both Rahm and Rauner, facing upcoming elections, see landing Amazon as a feather in their respective caps and are eager to jump at the bait. Bezos' name popped up in recently-released Rahm emails. In January 2013, Emanuel emailed Bezos, asking for more information about the possibility of the online retail giant locating a facility in Chicago.

"While this is below you, this is very important to me and would like to know if there any chance to set up a phone call with you to discuss?" Emanuel wrote the billionaire, who also owns the Washington Post. "Hope you had a Happy New Year."

Bezos responded by adding one of his executives to the email, "who leads our global fulfillment." Amazon has built multiple facilities in suburban collar counties, but only one in the city.

Bezos

While the city needs jobs, it's questionable whether all, or even most of those promised jobs will go to Chicagoans or to those in communities with the greatest need or highest youth unemployment rates. More likely, Amazon would move many of its existing staff and top execs here from other cities. It's not even clear that these execs will live in the city or in the burbs.

Secondly, there's the question of the negative impact this giant tax giveaway will have on public education and the current pension-debt crisis? America's corporate tax rate is 35%. But Amazon is one of 115 companies along with Boeing on the S&P500 that pay much less -- around 4%..

Finally, there's the problem of Amazon's unethical and even criminal modus operandi. The company was just hit with a $293 million fine from the European Union for failing to pay its tax obligations there.

According to the International Business Times, Amazon is far from alone in shrinking its effective tax rate by racking up state subsidies and credits — as those same states struggle to keep their public pension funds afloat. It cites a study released Wednesday by the advocacy group Good Jobs First and the National Public Pension Coalition which makes the connection between the huge tax breaks used to attract giant corporations to states and cities and their growing pension-debt crisis.

Greg LeRoy, the founder and executive director of Good Jobs First, said the best policy solution for governments looking to attract companies to their states is to prioritize small startups with high growth potential, rather than flocking to well-established behemoths, as well as choosing firms that require a lot of human capital, as opposed to those based mostly on automation. Either way, he said, the bottom line is there needs to be a clear payoff to not just the company but the surrounding economy — in which access to stable retirement income plays a significant role.

Mr. LeRoy makes a lot of sense.

In short, writes Joravsky,

 ...bringing Amazon to town will probably cost untold millions in tax credits—money diverted straight from the state's coffers. That spells a tax hike for everyone else as the state jacks up taxes to compensate for the money it's giving to Amazon.

 I'm hoping the Rahm/Rauner deal with Amazon goes the way of George Lucas' Star Wars Museum.