Ocean Vu Walk 2 Train

It's been raining so long in Texas that even your LakeCountyEye's basement is flooded. And while the basement of a single parent is as good a place to blog from as any, it has come to your LakeCountyEye's attention that 3 feet of water plus electrical devices is not a long-term plan for success. As a consequence, your LakeCountyEye has been apartment hunting.

Peter Roskam, Lake County's vestigial Congressman, is advertising a sublet in Barrington:

Roskam pays $200 a month to Barrington for his small satellite office that's considered market value, according to his village lease that runs to Jan. 2, 2019.
Roskam protest in Barrington centered on Medicaid, Medicare

Informed sources say $200/mo is quite reasonable, even for antebellum Barrington. (Your LakeCountyEye discovered the hard way that Barrington is not an inexpensive town.  A night out there can set you back $200 -- in soda tax alone!) Zillow says in Barrington $200 covers the rent for maybe a mail-drop and nothing more. And anyone who has ever lived out of a mail-drop knows that both parking and the washroom are down the street.

Long story short, your LakeCountyEye hurried over to 200 South Hough Street in Barrington to put down a security deposit -- only to be told that Congressman Roskam had no plans to vacate before the 2018 election.

Note to Ops: November 2018 is a long time to wait. Who is running against Roskam in the Primary?

Just askin!

The Rauner Mash

If amateurs imitate. And if pros steal. Then the Chicago Tribune Creepy Cartoonist™ is a pro. Long story short, the Creepy Tribune Cartoonist™ drew a cartoon this week that could have been posted in the LakeCountyEye.

As readers of this blog are aware, a good story starts with someone else's good idea. In this case, your LakeCountyEye stole (from Crain's) a cartoon of Billionaire/Gov. Bruce Rauner athwart the Titanic:

Flight from Liquidity

And as readers of this blog are aware, no story is a good Bruce Rauner story without a borrowed dinner jacket. In this case, your LakeCountyEye stole an image from the Ty‑D‑Bol Man:

Missed the Boat

Simply mashup these old LakeCountyEye stories, and presto‑change‑o, you have this Creepy Tribune Cartoonist™ cartoon:

Captain Rauner of the Titanic

Note to Ops: When you steal from your LakeCountyEye you know you steal from the best!

Pad the Bill

Billionaire/Gov. Bruce Rauner does not trust Lake County voters. Rauner vetoed legislation that would empower the voters of Lake County to decide whether or not to elect their County Board Chairman. According to a Daily Herald story, the Bill ...

would have required a 2018 referendum in which voters would decide whether to make the chairman a publicly elected post or leave it for other county board members to decide.
Rauner vetoes bill allowing public to elect Lake County chairman

Predictably, the Daily Herald was none too pleased. Haha, j/k -- they were pleased as punch. In a followup editorial, the Herald said the Bill ...

would require voters to elect the Lake County Board chairman rather than let the 21 board members themselves determine who will lead them. Wisely, Gov. Bruce Rauner recognized the legislation for the presumptuous overreach that it is and vetoed it last week. Lawmakers could consider whether to override him, but there don't seem to be enough votes in the House for such an effort to succeed. Good.
Editorial: Rauner veto reinforces local control in Lake County

To be sure, requiring Lake County voters to elect their County Board Chair is one thing. And requiring a referendum to ask those same voters to decide the matter, is another thing entirely.

And while the Daily Herald may have applauded Gov Rauner for vetoing the former, in point of fact he vetoed the latter.

When asked to explain the mixup, one spokesman said: "Well sure, if the editors had read their own story in the pages of the Daily Herald they would have understood the Bill. But who reads the Daily Herald?"

Merry Eclipse Day!

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Your LakeCountyEye will keep you apprised when further developments warrant.

Pop a Pill

Pop Quiz!

Can you identify this substance? What is ...

1. Addictive.
2. Induces euphoria.
3. Lacks nutritional value.
4. Creates animus when proscribed or subject to tariff.

If you answered ...

OPIOIDS

... good guess! But the correct answer is:

SODA POP

Haha, were it not a multi-billion dollar industry, your carbonated beverage would be classified as a Schedule I Controlled Substance. But as things stand, millions of soda pop addicts are held hostage daily to the carbonated beverage cartels -- and woe unto anyone who deems it wise to impede the flow of sugary (and artificially sweetened) beverages:

It's been just over a week but Cook County's new tax on sweetened beverages is on the fast track toward becoming one of the more vilified public policies in recent memory.
It's been 9 days. It's time to repeal Cook County's soda pop tax

What do the candidates have to say about the universally reviled soda tax? Ammie Kessem is a candidate for State Rep in District 19, on Chicago's Northwest side:

Ammie Kessem for State Rep

And as far as your LakeCountyEye can tell, Kessem has nothing whatsoever to say about the soda tax in Cook County:

Ammie Kessem for State Rep: Issues

Note to Ammie Kessem Ops: Your candidate is missing a bet.

Just sayin!

Nobody Here Except Us Chickens

Who doesn't eagerly look forward to their next Lake County rubber chicken dinner? If that is you, your LakeCountyEye has good news. The bottom just fell out of the market:

The movement to grow backyard chickens has caused controversy in many suburbs, so it should be no surprise that a proposal to house thousands of them just outside North Barrington's village limits is drawing resistance from the birds' prospective neighbors. If approved, a plan calls for the cluckers to be used for egg production on a large-scale poultry farm at the southwest corner of Scott Road and Route 59.
Thousands of chickens on suburban farm? Plan has neighbors upset

Basic market forces dictate that whenever your supply of chickens go up, your catering costs necessarily go down. It doesn't necessarily mean it will cost your pocketbook less to attend that next rubber chicken dinner. But analysts do agree you can look forward to a lot more rubber chicken dinners.

Analysts, however, are in disagreement over what the word clucker was doing in the aforementioned Daily Herald story ...

"a plan calls for the cluckers to be used"

After looking up clucker in the dictionary your LakeCountyEye has some ideas. No fewer than ten:

10 Words that Rhyme with Clucker

Pucker Sucker Chukkar Muckraker Smucker's Scupper Bugger Fluffernutter Clunker Clusterbump

Look for your LakeCountyEye winning the Pullets-er Prize near you.

The Price is Right

Willie Sutton robbed banks. Nowadays just go to Congress instead.

Haha, the banking sector is giving away money to your US Representatives. For instance, Randy Hultgren has taken home more than $1,000,000 from financial interests:

Rep. Randy Hultgren: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Representative Career | OpenSecrets

Perhaps not coincidentally, Hultgren, Lake County's boreal Congressman, voted recently to repeal the Dodd-Frank Act:

A bill that repeals it has made its way through one level of Congress. The Financial Choice Act, passed by the House of Representatives last week, repeals many of the financial rules and regulations in what's called the Dodd-Frank Act that was passed in 2010.
Illinois Reps weigh in on House vote to repeal Dodd-Frank regulations

The new Republican Bill would ...

tie the hands of bank regulators and make it easier for banks to again take risks that endanger our economy. The bill would repeal the Volcker Rule, which prohibits banks from gambling with customer money;
What is the Financial CHOICE Act (HR 10)?

Perhaps not coincidentally, Randy Hultgren was seen this week at the Waukegan Casino:

Keep calm and Carey on. This is merely another hilarious LakeCountyEye Double Vision™!

Note to Ops: Your odds are better at the craps table.

Block the Vote

Lake County wants $130,638 from the Illinois State Board of Elections:

State cuts 2017 funds for voter registration integrity

The Lump Sum Grant is intended to help the County strike fraudulent voters from the rolls. To be sure, at 130K it would seem that Lake County has more ghost voters that it has graves. But one veteran observer says don't be fooled by the numbers, look at the figures instead: "I don't think there are 130,000 ghost voters registered in Lake County. That works out to only one dollar per vote!"

In any event, this ghost story will have to wait until next year. Because of the budget impasse, the check isn't even in the mail:

Local election authorities will lose more than $4.4 million in grant funds this year that pay for, among other things, purging ineligible names from voter registration rolls.
State cuts 2017 funds for voter registration integrity

Princess Nudelman did not return your LakeCountyEye's calls.