Note to readers from Mark Glennon re: Ukraine
May 6, 2026
4 Comments
Everybody needs a side hustle these days, and mine is Ukraine, where I am now.
-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Fiscal discipline is a trait never found in Cook and Chicago, which dominate the state, and thus the state is a mess too. The bigger questions are how to break the stranglehold of single party rule in Cook and Chicago and public union money’s hold on politicians. Not much happening until that happens and pigs may fly first.
Encouraging illegals to the state cost over 2 billion and now we also have Venezuelan Gangs!
The democrats have been in charge of the state government for how many years? Forget the occasional governor spot when the house and senate are totally controlled by the dims. The responsibility for this mess is squarely in their lap yet they will remain in control when the state is controlled by Cook County. The blame finger should be pointed directly at the donkey that represents their party.
I stopped reading at responsible fiscal leadership over the last few years. That’s what the tribune calls responsible? How much of the COVID relief funds were used to fix the pensions? The state budget exploded with the fact that the filth had federal money to steal. You will never be free when the media is owned lock, stock and barrel by the government. The media is nothing but D students doing the work of their democrat masters. You know. Real scum.
Keep in mind the media didn’t write this one.
Yes and is why if there was a tax hike sold as a pension fix the funds would be squandered as they always are.
I read this long but empty article and immediately thought of the “Mission Statement” my community high school district sent to all district residents. It ran 6 pages and contained meaningless aphorisms like “continue to endeavor to maintain where possible” and “strive to try to provide meaningful growth experiences for all”. When Lee Iococca rescued Chrysler Motors years ago, his mission statement written in chalk on the assembly plant floor read, “We will make the best cars in the world”. Simple, to the point, understood by all!
Zero value in this piece. They could have saved time simply by saying “fix it, with no negative impact”. Not possible. The “pension mess” is the iceberg that the HMS Illinois is preparing to ram at full speed.
>>> Place the Illinois retirement systems on a path to 100% actuarially determined funding <<<
Isn’t that what Edgar promised with his so called ramp gimmickry? Same old same old; the answer is at least freeze any and all new spending and pay the _^_&__& bills !!
Article claims states in great fiscal shape due to “responsible stewardship” without mentioning all the fed COVID bailouts?
Does anyone with 1/2 a brain cell believe once all the COVID $bucks$ are spent Illinois won’t be back to being a disaster?
“Responsible stewardship” to these civic leaders apparently includes billions spent on illegal aliens, billions more on doomed energy programs that now have us facing an electricity crisis and an ‘F’ “sinkhole ranking by Truth in Accounting.
Is now the last chance the machine has to ram through a TIER II fix while dopey taxpayers are deceived by the “Responsible stewardship” COVID con?
The people in authority, Pritzker and the Leftists Democrats and the corrupted courts, are unconcerned.
Ha Ha Ha
How many years and times has this been said
Will never happen!
Agreed. All this piece does list the problems. No fix offered. What’s the purpose in even writing it?
It allows the Tribune to create the appearance of being a ‘loyal opposition’ and unbiased observer. Of course, the Tribune is part of the problem and will loyally support anything that CTU and Illinois socialists want. Maybe if they ask John Kass to write this article for them they may regain some credibility or maybe…….just simply reprint his “Chicago Trembles at the Curses of Mayor Johnson” article. Of course that will never happen. The hyper sensitive Tribune writers guild would collapse into fits of melted snowflake puddling if such a thing were to happen.
What’s utterly unforgivable at the Tribune currently is the obscene bias on national stories it selects to print. They are virtually all pro-Harris or anti-Trump, and from sources that are themselves biased like A.P. and NYT. That’s where some woke Guild people are doing their dirtiest work. Do make a distinction, however, from the opinion pages that I think are more balanced. I have no problem with them selecting this one to print since it is written by prominent groups, whether you like them or not. Same at Sun-Times, of course.
Hopefully the election laws can get updated by PDJT for the legacy media functioning as a DNC propaganda outlet. All of this bias is tracked in detail now and should have consequences. The Leftist Democrats wish to censorship all opposition, so turn about is fair.
Nearly all news media is exactly the same with little if any differentiation between them. The local papers are reduced to reprinting national news stories from the same handful of sources controlled by the Democrat Party. There’s really no need for all the news like CBS, NBC, NPR, NYT, WAPO, they are all exactly the same, selling the same product. That’s why the news media is collapsing right now. I don’t think there even exist any other national news source that isn’t controlled by Democrats, even if the Trib wanted to publish national news stories with less bias or slant.