Fixed it for you: Madigan sentenced to 6.3 years in prison
& should immigrant-rights protesters wave the Mexican flag?
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Tuesdays at 11:30 a.m. I talk with WGN-AM 720 host John Williams about what’s making news and likely to be grist for the PS mill. The WGN listen-live link is here.
Madigan sentenced to 7.5 6.3 years in prison
The headlines on stories about the sentence handed down Friday to former Democratic Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan highlighted the official 7.5-year sentence, but saved for the bodies of the stories — or omitted entirely — the fact that Madigan is all but certain to serve just 85% of that sentence — 6.3 years — due to “good time” provisions in federal sentencing law.
To lose “good time” credits, a prisoner basically has to commit an additional serious offense while behind bars — rioting, attempting to escape, possessing weapons or illegal drugs and so on — meaning that Madigan’s sentence based on his criminal conviction was effectively 6.3 years. I contend that news reports ought to highlight the actual expected time to be served rather than the fictional one — particularly in the cases of many state criminal convictions where inmates get day-for-day “good time” and usually serve only about half their sentences.
The headlines should read, “Judge: Madigan to spend 6.3 years in prison,” or, if that’s too wordy, the headline should be vague about the actual length of the sentence and then clarified in the first paragraph.
I’ve heard two arguments against this:
The sentence is the sentence, technically, and the headlines should reflect that.
Everyone understands that prisoners get time knocked off for “good behavior” so news reports need not stress this.
My answer is that citing the longer, fictional sentence is a form of sensationalism.
And of course this may be moot if President Donald Trump decides to stick a finger in Illinois’ eye by pardoning Madigan. I wouldn’t put it past him.
Notes and comments from readers — lightly edited — along with my responses
Books you hated but everyone else seemed to love
Shelley Riskin — Have you ever read a book that everyone loved but you hated? Mine was “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold. It wasn’t spiritual! It was awful awful awful!
Mark K. — I recently finished Joan Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking", which received many rave reviews. I really hated it. It was supposed to be about coping with a shocking loss and grieving, but I found it self-indulgent, self-unaware and missing key coping mechanisms.
John Houck — “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” comes to mind. Halfway through it turned into a travelogue for Paris, which wouldn't have been so bad if it didn't run for dozens of pages. Victor Hugo needed a better editor.
Zorn — Every single one of my friends seemed to love “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles. I diligently plowed through half of it before giving up. The characters didn’t interest me and the plot did not seem to be going anywhere.
Which book did you hate but that everyone else seemed to love?
But will peaceful protests get noticed?
Tom Krish — Regarding your call for peaceful protests against Trump here, in Los Angeles and around the country: Don't protests need a certain amount of chaos to be effective? If 100% of protesters are orderly and follow the rules, no one from the outside will care.
Mark K. — Occupy protests were peaceful and prolonged and involved large numbers of people, but ultimately didn't achieve anything. Violence is awful and dangerous and counterproductive and will lead to retaliation by Trump, but some level of disruption is necessary for the protests to have any effect. Maybe blocking some streets (hopefully allowing emergency vehicles through), maybe forcing some temporary closures of businesses and government services. It's a very delicate balance to strike.
Phillip Seeberg — On “The Mincing Rascals” podcast last week, Eric mentioned that he joined in the peaceful “Hands Off” protest downtown in early April and that it didn’t get particularly prominent coverage in the local media. That answers the question why so many protests have agitators. No one likes to complain and not get noticed.
Marc Martinez —Blocking the expressways and major streets should be avoided. There is no need for any type of disruption to get plenty of media coverage.
Zorn — It’s true that if some misguided jamoke or cynical right-wing agitator broke a few windows or tussled with a the police, both the Hands Off and the No Kings protests would have gotten more media attention. But I would argue that it’s bad attention. Clearly, the provocateurs and agitators from the other side who infiltrate the protests realize that vandalism discredits demonstrations.
The Occupy protesters were small in number, feckless and aimless — no realistic “asks” except for more attention to income inequality and diminished opportunities. The current protests are far larger and better focused, and it’s my view that the turnout at the No Kings rallies across the country Saturday will move the needle of public opinion in a slightly favorable direction.
Blocking major streets is an inevitable part of large protests, but blocking expressways and such thoroughfares as DuSable Lake Shore Drive are irritating to many allies and potentially dangerous. Preventing people from getting to work, getting to important meetings or doctor visits or, heck, getting to the bathroom is never a way to win friends, and make no mistake, these protests are about winning friends
Terry Moran’s indiscreet tweets
Melinda A.K.— My problem with the way ABC News didn’t renew the contract of senior national correspondent Terry Moran over his harsh tweets about Stephen Miller is that it’s yet another instance of ABC kissing Trump's rump. It’s disheartening to see so much of the mainstream media bending over backwards to this regime instead of challenging it with truth. I agree, Moran’s tweets violated his duty to be neutral and objective, but a suspension was sufficient to get that point across. Letting him go was too much. An apology for stepping outside the bounds of journalistic integrity just this one time should have been enough.
A benefit of the ‘Pizza Tax’ that I hadn’t thought of
Conor Mac — The proposed “Pizza Tax” — a $1.50 fee per home delivery of goods in Illinois — seems likely to discourage people from making numerous impulsive purchases from online retailers, and encourage them to order many items at once, since the fee is a flat $1.50 no matter how many items are in any shipment.
My fiancée, for example, will order anything on a whim because there’s no additional cost to her in doing so. We get 12 deliveries per week from Amazon, Target and other outlets. Not only does the waste bug me, but so does walking up and down the apartment stairs 12 times per week for her tiny junk, which she ends up returning half the time anyway.
All these deliveries add to traffic congestion and have a negative environmental impact. If she were charged $1.50 for each of the 12 deliveries, she’d probably fill up her “cart” before placing her orders. So I’m 100% on board with putting up this barrier against one of my least favorite qualities of the person I love. The additional money for mass transit is just a bonus.
Zorn — Perhaps you need to insert an Amazon-restraint proviso into your wedding vows? Just sayin’.
Subscriber woes
Gary Ashman —I’m a paid subscriber, and sometimes I receive Tuesday and not Thursday; Thursday and not Tuesday. Can’t figure out why (I’ve navigated the help and support features multiple times).
Zorn — The inability of Substack to coordinate with the major email providers is a source of frustration for me and too many readers, and a source of confusion for me: I appreciate the ability of Gmail, AOL, Hotmail etc. to filter out spam, but those who sign up for Substack newsletters presumptively signed up for them and don’t want them identified as spam. The technological fix would seem easy on their end. I wrote to their help desk.
Their answer: “I’ll pass this feedback along to our team for discussion. We’re always looking to improve, so we appreciate the note. If someone from our team provides more information, I'll be sure to let you know.”
In other words, don’t hold your breath.
Resolution to an old case examined in the Picayune Sentinel
Joanie Wimmer: The Tribune story “Plea deal ends career of Chicago police officer who struck 14-year-old student” resolves a story that you and readers discussed at length in the Picayune Sentinel in November, 2023.
Zorn — Yep, and I continue to contend that this case was much ado about not very much. An adult shoved a mouthy kid, and everyone got the vapors. The fact that the adult was an off-duty cop who had nearly 30 allegations of misconduct — most were use-of-force complaints — in his 20 year career seemingly helped blow it out of proportion. Kim Foxx’s prosecutors initially charged the man with felony aggravated battery, a charge that carried a possible five year prison term and carried the whiff of hysteria.
Unpopular opinions?
Thursday in my Picayune Sentinel item headlined “Rally don’t riot,” I advised those who planned to join me marching in Saturday’s “No Kings” protests:
Wave American flags — not Mexican or other flags — as a reminder to your mainstream, moderate voting audience that you are patriotically demanding fealty to American values and that the hardworking, taxpaying immigrants now getting the summary heave-ho share those values and contribute mightily to our country.
My view is not that there’s anything wrong with national/ethnic pride or displays of same, but that we are engaged at this moment in a struggle for the hearts and minds of mainstream, moderate voters, and that visual reminders that our advocacy for non-criminal immigrants is about strengthening our country, not celebrating other countries.
The public still broadly if narrowly supports Trump’s immigration policies according to the latest Economist/YouGov poll:
This is true even though that majority support attaches only to efforts to oust undocumented immigrants who have committed violent crimes, a position that even the vast majority of Democrats share:
Anti-Trump former Republican U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois said the visuals of the Mexican flag at such protests are “feeding right into Donald Trump’s narrative. People can carry whatever flag they want. They have a right to do it. I just think that it would be much stronger if they were carrying American flags only.”
The contrary view about the Mexican flag is well expressed by these two Mexican-American columnists
Gustavo Arellano in the Los Angeles Times:
Why wave the flag of another country and not the United States? How will this win the proverbial hearts and minds of opponents who rule the White House and Capitol Hill? Isn't it ridiculous to taunt Trump and his supporters ? …
The moderates have always feared that Latinos waving the flags of Mexico, El Salvador, Venezuela and other ancestral countries is political suicide — that it taps into the part of the American psyche that believes Latinos will never assimilate and are sleeper agents scheming to overthrow this country. They've fretted especially about the Mexican flag, which is radioactive to conservatives … But when people who wrap themselves in the American flag scream for you and your loved ones to get the hell out of "their" country, I understand why folks will reflexively embrace a symbol that stands against such jingoism and expresses pride in their backgrounds. … Waving a foreign flag at protests is good trouble - a sign for the brave to rally together and stand tall against a commander in chief who understands nothing but chaos.
Enrique Acevedo in the Washington Post:
For many, seeing the Mexican flag waved during a protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement doesn't just raise eyebrows; it feels like an affront. They ask: If you're demanding rights in this country, why wave the flag of another? But that flag, at that moment, is not about rejecting the United States. It's about refusing to be erased. It's layered with history, memory and defiance. It calls into question who we are as a country and, more important, who we're willing to include. It forces a reckoning with a national identity far more complicated than many are ready to admit.
It isn't necessarily a symbol of separation or rejection. Sometimes, it's a claim: We are both. We are Mexican and American, not divided but layered. This is what our identity looks like. As someone shaped by both countries, I've lived most of my life inside that tension. And still, that space between two nations, two asymmetrical worlds, each imprinting me in ways that didn't always align, never felt like a void. Instead, it connected me to millions of others with the same layered identity. ….
When someone waves the Mexican flag in the streets of L.A., it strikes a nerve. But maybe what unsettles people isn't the flag itself; it's what it reveals. It confronts us with a complexity we still struggle to accept: that being American doesn't require being less of anything else. That pride in your roots doesn't cancel your claim to this country. That loving where you are doesn't mean forgetting where you're from.
Last week’s result
Mark K. — I don't binge watch, but I also don't like waiting a whole week for the next episode of a show, especially when the previous episode ended in a cliffhanger. I typically like to watch one episode per day or one every other day or so. Does that ruin the weekly conversations with other fans? Maybe, but that's a double-edged sword since if you happen to miss a particular episode, you're then caught in a game of avoiding spoilers, so you're kind of pressured to be on the platform's schedule, which I don't like.
Michael M -- You should do a poll on whether people prefer streaming on a TV or a tablet. I find the rewind works better on the Apps and with headphones I can watch my stuff while the kids usurp the 65" TV for their Minecraft videos.
If you have a question to propose fo this feature, leave it in comments or send me an email, Be sure to offer at least a paragraph in defense of your view.
From the suggestion box
I’m responding to some of the hundreds of anonymous suggestions/comments that readers posted to my recent reader survey:
Suggestion: Please stop harping on Brandon Johnson.
Reply : I don’t consider my criticisms of Johnsons’ tactics and his rhetoric to be “harping.”My intent is constructive; to encourage him, in my picayune way, to do better.
Suggestion: Bring back the short, pre-show videos of the Mincing Rascals podcast.
Reply: It’s been almost a year since we stopped posting the “Mincing Rascals Countdown” videos (here’s the final one), the main reason being that we were getting only about 100 views on each video so it wasn’t worth the time to edit and post them. I’d like to see us post unedited video of the entire podcast as a way to expand our reach. I don’t prefer watching people talking, but many do. Edison Podcast Metrics has reported that “YouTube, typically known as the go-to platform for video content, has risen to the top as the most popular service used for podcast listening in the U.S.”
NewsWheel
Inspired by the WordWheel puzzle in the Monday-Friday Chicago Tribune and other papers, this puzzle asks you to identify the missing letter that will make a word or words — possibly proper nouns; reading either clockwise or counterclockwise — related to a story in the news or other current event. The answer is at the bottom of the newsletter.
The week’s best visual jokes
Here are some funny visual images I've come across recently on social media. Enjoy, then evaluate:
There’s still time to vote in the conventional Quip of the Week poll!
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Info
Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise.
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Answer to the NewsWheel puzzle
PROTESTS
Egads, the people who routinely wave confederate flags at Trump rallies are verklempt at seeing Mexican flags at protests?
Cry me a river. 🙄
I find the arguments advocating for waving the Mexican flag during protests to be ineffective. I think it brings nothing positive to the table, and just provides fodder for the anti-immigrant group. Any time you need a complex explanation for a symbol or a slogan, you can be sure your message is getting lost in the translation.
I’ve always opposed the hardcore right wrapping themselves in the American flag and co-opting it as an emblem of their movement. The flag is for ALL Americans, and the left should emphasize that by incorporating it into their rallies and demonstrations.