Bill Roper's Journal

There are a lot of things I could say now. Most of you don't want to hear them, so I will refrain. :)

Because there are not enough things trying to kill me right now, I got the letter back from the Cook County Assessor's office informing me that my property tax appeal has been denied. This despite submitting an assessor's report to them showing that they have the property overvalued by $130,000 and other properties on the street being valued for less per square foot.

"The result is based on consideration of submitted appraisal and also an analysis of comparable properties."

No, it isn't. You've generated a bunch of fake valuations for our street and are using them to justify the entire tissue of lies.

Fritz Kaegi is a crook.

Now, I'll try the Board of Review.

I am going to have to get some more information about how to overturn an entire neighborhood of incorrect assessments. Our crooked Cook County Assessor, Fritz Kaegi, has produce assessments for this neighborhood that are easily $100,000 more than any of the homes on the block could sell for. We all know this. The last sale in this neighborhood was a completely renovated and updated house that sold for $470,000 in 2017. It was assessed for $600,000 in the last round of assessments based on nothing that I can figure out and has been used to drag up the assessments of the other homes on the block to match.

Many of us hired lawyers to appeal our assessments and got token reductions of around $5000 or so on the assessment, which is peanuts when the neighborhood is so completely overassessed. But because the assessor has corralled us into a tiny neighborhood *and* because their process only wants to accept comparables from the neighborhood, they use their inflated assessments of each of the houses to justify the inflated assessment that you're appealing.

There is another neighborhood of tract homes in our town in a different assessment neighborhood than ours. Those homes are larger than ours. They are two years newer than ours. They back up onto a city park and then a schoolyard (we just back up onto the schoolyard). They are uniformly assessed for $100,000 less than ours.

This is in no way understood by man (as opposed to crooked politicians, which Illinois is full of) as a fair process.

Fritz Kaegi is a crooked politician, just like his predecessor. He campaigned on reform, but he delivered more corruption.

Tomorrow, I am going to start making some phone calls. They may not do a lot of good, but at least I can tell as many people as possible what kind of crooked operation Fritz Kaegi is running.

Today, I received yet another reminder that I live in one of the most corrupt and badly run states in the Union.

I was driving south on the Tri-State on my way to a doctor's appointment. I was in a construction zone, traffic was congested, and in the leftmost lane of the tollway (one to my left) there was a police vehicle approaching rapidly with its lights on. Well, that was easy to deal with. I wasn't in front of him, so I slowed down, left room for other vehicles to merge right, and he went past.

This was an unfamiliar police vehicle though. Traffic eased up almost immediately after he passed and he swung over into the right-hand lane and turned off his lights. At that point I got a good look at the text on the side of the vehicle: "Secretary of State Police". That seemed odd. Why in the world does the Secretary of State require his own police force?

A bit later, traffic became congested in another construction zone. By this time, the aforementioned vehicle was back in the leftmost lane. He popped on his lights and proceeded to pass the slowed traffic while driving on the shoulder. This seemed (and continues to seem) like a poor choice, because this falls into the category of fairly dangerous driving and it is difficult to imagine what sort of emergency the "Secretary of State Police" might be heading to that would make this a good idea.

When I got to my destination, I looked them up on the Internet. And here's what it says:

"The department is recognized throughout the state and the nation as one of the premier agencies for the enforcement of the motor vehicle theft statutes and the regulation of the automotive industry.

Currently the Department regulates more than 15,000 licensees including new and used dealers, used part dealers, repairers and rebuilders."

Right. Hard to imagine exactly what sort of emergency he was heading to that would require him to be running hot -- or, honestly, to have a vehicle with lights and siren at all.

But that's the state I live in.

So let's talk about the press.

A long time ago, when I was in high school, I was taking a government class. One of our assignments was to do a notebook on the 1972 Presidential election, the campaign being in full swing at that time. (Yes, I am showing my age.) We had two papers in town at the time: the Globe Democrat, which leaned Republican, and the Post Dispatch, which leaned Democratic. Our family took them both, the former coming in the morning, the latter in the evening.

I was bemused by a pair of articles that I found in the papers one day. Based on the internal evidence in the articles, they were both covering the same speech by George McGovern. But the Globe Democrat headlined a particularly inflammatory statement that McGovern had made; the Post Dispatch mentioned it not at all.

Well, that was interesting. Did both newspapers tell the "truth"? I guess they did, but they were two very different versions of the truth depending on what the writer of the story thought was important to the truth of the situation.

Now you can argue that the Post Dispatch story lied by omission. But maybe McGovern's remark really wasn't that important in the overall scheme of things. Maybe the Globe Democrat was taking it out of context to promote *their* version of the "truth".

But the thing I learned was that you weren't going to find out what the facts were if you relied on someone else's interpretation of them and what they chose to present as everything you needed to know in order to understand the truth of the situation. I have been skeptical of the press ever since. And the press has continued to justify my skepticism.

I recall a story in the Chicago Tribune about the Three Amigos summit (U.S., Canada, Mexico) that President Obama went to ahead of the 2012 Presidential election. If you read that story, you would have thought that there were absolutely no contentious issues discussed among the three leaders and that everything was absolutely hunky and dory between them. That seemed strange to me, because I knew that there were some major sticking points between the other two countries and the U.S. at that time. And eventually I found a story in Investors Business Daily that mentioned that those issues had been the subject of quite some discussion.

Now, yes, I know that the Trib is the "Republican" paper in Chicago (or was at the time), but it was also fairly obvious that any problems that they might have had with President Obama were kept completely confined to the editorial pages. The news coverage was largely, if not uniformly, favorable. And perhaps that was the "truth" of the situation.

Or not. Hard to say.

So here's *my* truth.

I love you, free press. But I don't *trust* you. And I *shouldn't* trust you, because you will -- consciously or unconsciously -- insert bias into your stories. So I will collect a *lot* of different "truths" as I collect my news from a great many sources, doing my best to be aware of the biases of each of those sources and my *own* biases as I sift through the news.

And then I will try to figure out what the actual *facts* are from what I've heard and read.

And then I'll try to figure out what the "truth" is.

I may not succeed. In some cases, I will look at this mess and say, "I have no *idea* what the truth is here."

But at least I will know what it is that I don't know.

And that is progress.

Just some thoughts, with most of the serial numbers filed off.

I am a closet moderate. Really. (You can stop laughing now.)

I am also extremely cynical about politics. I do not believe I am excessively cynical, which sometimes makes me sad.

I have more respect for Daniel Biss than I do for either of the other two major Democratic candidates for governor, because he at least tried to do something about the pension problem in Illinois, even if the Illinois Supreme Court decided that approach wouldn't fly. I'd have even more respect for him if he had owned the attempt rather than running from it during the campaign.

While I'm mentioning pensions, I observe that they used to tell us that government workers deserved these pensions because they had worse working conditions and lower salaries than non-government workers. It is far from clear to me that this is still true, but the pension system is, apparently, forever.

I am always bemused by ads for candidates that tout credentials and political positions that have absolutely nothing at all to do with the office that they are running for. I could name one, but that particular crook -- happily! -- lost.

Pro-tip for Republican primary voters: when the other party is running primary season ads where they refer to a Republican candidate as "the true conservative" in the race, this is an indication that they think you are about as smart as Daffy Duck and that you can be persuaded to nominate said "true conservative" who will be toast in the general election. Sometimes, they are correct. If you have forgotten, just search up "Todd Akin" in your browser.

However, the good news for the Democrats is that by helping gin up a competitive Republican gubernatorial race, they managed to stop a lot of what I would classify as "good government Republicans" from pulling a Democratic ballot for the primary. Well done! It didn't achieve all of your goals, but it helped out a number of candidates backed by the party machine.

That's probably enough for now.

Apparently, a judge has issued a temporary injunction against the Cook County soda tax, siding with the merchants who are still trying to figure out how they are supposed to collect this mess.

Meanwhile, Toni Preckwinkle had a letter to the editor in today's Chicago Tribune saying that Trib columnist Eric Zorn was incorrect when he said that the county would be charging a tax on the ice in a customer's soda. Of course, she did not explain how he was incorrect about this. I am willing to bet (an easy bet with the tax in temporary abeyance) that had I gone to McDonald's tomorrow and ordered a 32-ounce soda, I would have been charged 32 cents in Cook County soda tax, despite the presence of ice in the drink. That would seem to indicate that I am paying tax on ice.

If Preckwinkle can explain how that wouldn't be happening, I would be greatly entertained to hear that explanation.

I voted today. But that's not what I'm here to talk about.

I'm here to talk about the secret ballot and what an absolutely wonderful thing that it is.

In a country where we have established that it is perfectly acceptable to fire someone for having the "wrong" political opinion, the secret ballot gives you the privilege -- and a tremendous privilege it is! -- of voting your conscience. What you do in the voting booth is up to you, not to anyone else.

And when you walk out of the voting booth -- or even before you vote, when talking to pollsters -- you have the right to lie. You can lie to signal virtue. You can lie to annoy. You can lie just because it keeps you safe.

My usual position on lying is that it is a bad idea, if for no other reason than the truth is the lowest entropy state and the easiest to keep consistent. But for the sanctity of the secret ballot, I am willing to make an exception.

This is, by the way, why states have laws against "ballot selfies". Ballot selfies are incredibly bad as a matter of public policy, because they allow you to prove how you voted. (To a lesser extent, this criticism also applies to the mail-in ballots that are gaining in popularity.) And if you can prove how you voted, you can be forced to prove how you voted, either to collect some illegal inducement or for your own safety.

For those of you who still think that ballot selfies are a good idea, I'm going to ask you a question: Do you believe that there is one vile husband somewhere in America who will beat his wife if she votes the "wrong" way?

One is too many.

Our ancestors paid dearly to get us that secret ballot. Enjoy the privilege.

And remember to vote.

Or not. Because you have the right to do that too.

It's a wonderful country.

I saw yet another political post today on my Facebook feed. It was a large picture of the Illinois governor with the prominent caption, "Governor Rauner, Pass a Budget".

I was moved. Mostly, I was moved to shake my head at the fact that whoever had originally generated the picture and whoever had posted it were neglecting the small matter that Governor Rauner is not the Illinois legislature and cannot pass any sort of bill. He could sign a bill. He can choose not to veto a bill.

He cannot, however, assume legislative powers just because the legislature has not actually managed to pass a bill that has been either signed or not vetoed. Our system does not work that way.

[Snarky remark elided. Some among you might actually figure out what it would be. :) ]

*thud* *thud* *thud*

It's going to be a very long 100 days until the U.S. Presidential election.