The Daily Parker

Welp, I voted, and now I'm getting in to the office only an hour late. Nothing left to do but wait until 7pm Chicago time when the first big batch of polls close, including ours in Illinois.

Before discussing the most important sports story in North America since...well, since the States were United, let me highlight some of the political and professional stories percolating:

• The Economist has endorsed Hillary Clinton for President. "This choice is not hard."
• Meanwhile, the High Court in London ruled today that Parliament must actually vote to trigger Brexit, which gives MPs another crack at the piñata and perhaps a way out. No telling when Teresa May plans to schedule this vote as the UK Supreme Court still has to hear the case. In any event, the government now can't trigger Article 50 for the indefinite future.
• TPM's electoral scoreboard now stands at Clinton 269, Trump 221, with New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Florida now toss-ups. Nate Silver points out that his estimates have Clinton at about the same point Obama was in 2012, giving Clinton 293 to Trump's 244. Deeply Trivial explains more about Silver's statistics.
• Meanwhile, if it seems like the FBI is in full-on Clinton-hating mode, it's because they are. The Guardian's Spencer Ackerman reports that the bureau is "Trumplandia" and totally off the rails. Great. TPM (where Ackerman worked previously) analyzes the journalism making the FBI's political interference worse.
• University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone is appalled by elected Republicans threatening a scorched-earth rear-guard assault against Clinton's policies. Brian Beutler agrees it could be a long two years until the 2018 mid-terms in which absolutely nothing gets done.

Stay tuned for the real story of the day.

The Cubs' World Series Game 7 tonight in Cleveland may be "the biggest game in Chicago sports history," according to Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville. I agree.

But still, I'm trying to maintain perspective:

• This is the only the second time in franchise history they've played in November. Last night was the first.
• They won the National League pennant after a 71-year drought. That's not trivial.
• If Cleveland wins, maybe they'll be so happy there it will tip Ohio into Hillary Clinton's column.
• They have played some amazing baseball during this series, and during this season.
• They'll be back next year.

So let's see what happens. And go, Cubs, go!

In between meetings and client visits, I've been paging through New York Magazine's article from last week, "The Final Days of the Trump Campaign:"

Perhaps the most surprising thing to ponder at this late stage in the election is just how close the race could have been had he taken nearly any of the advice offered to him by advisers. “This thing was doable if we did it the right way,” one adviser told me.

When Paul Manafort, a veteran Republican lobbyist and operative cut from Establishment cloth — he’d worked on Gerald Ford’s, George H.W. Bush’s, and Bob Dole’s presidential campaigns — came onboard to serve as campaign chairman at the beginning of the general-election season, he suggested a strategy that was the exact opposite of the one Trump pursued in the primaries. He wanted Trump to lower his profile, which would force the media to focus on ­Clinton — a flawed opponent with historic unfavorable ratings who couldn’t erase the stain of scandal, real or invented. “The best thing we can do is to have you move into a cave for the next four months,” Manafort told Trump during a meeting. “If you’re not on the campaign trail, the focus is on her, and we win. Whoever the focus is on will lose.”

But Trump is Trump, after all, and his entire campaign is based on him being better than "so-called 'experts.'" Kind of like the Brexit folks. I just hope Clinton's actual experts know how to beat this dangerous charlatan.

Let me see if I understand. Eleven days before an election, FBI Director James Comey sends a letter to Congress that has no specific information about an issue that was deemed closed in July but with the implication that the presidential candidate in the other party may have committed some malfeasance, even though doing so is against his agency's own policies? How can he be trusted to run a police force now?

The FBI language in the letter to Congress made it clear that new evidence had been discovered and thus will be reviewed — meaning FBI agents will read these emails. It is unusual for the FBI to tell Congress it is looking over newly discovered evidence in a criminal inquiry that was otherwise closed.

Federal practice is not to comment on ongoing investigations, or discuss details of concluded investigations. Comey previously explained his departure from that practice in his earlier congressional testimony, given the special nature of this case and congressional oversight inquiries.

Great. The FBI will read some new emails. What about the 22 million emails George W. Bush and his gang sent through the RNC's email servers that have up and vanished? Can he find those too?

Still busy. So busy.

• Some intrepid Tribune reporters went to every bar in Wrigleyville so you don't have to.
• Meanwhile, Crain's went to a bunch of breweries and wineries in Southwestern Michigan so you can also.
• Do you want to hear Trump's self-immolation at last night's Alfred E Smith dinner?
• Better yet, just go back and re-watch last night's Cubs game. They're one away from their first pennant since 1945. This could happen...

And now I have to set up a development environment.

Recaps of the debate comprise just a few of the things I haven't had time to read today:

• Who hated Trump's caginess on whether he'd accept the election results if he lost? Everyone: The Economist, The New Republic, The National Review, Talking Points Memo, everyone. 
• Trump's debate performance is being compared to book reports by kids who haven't read the book.
• Pilot Patrick Smith says Trump's airline wasn't that bad for customers, but it never made a profit either.
• Meanwhile, the Cubs beat the Dogders 10-2, which means the series will be decided at Wrigley on Saturday or Sunday.
• Looks like Chicago will have a warm-ish November and a normal-ish winter.
• One of the world's largest data centers, here in the South Loop area of Chicago, will soon be a lot bigger.
• Funny statistic: almost all airport noise complaints come from a handful of people—like the one person in Maryland who complained about Washington Dulles 1,024 times last year.
• Finally, "Hamilton," which I saw Sunday, got a rave from the Tribune.

Back to my meetings.

Sigh. Here we go again.

21:14 EDT: Fifteen minutes on the 2nd Amendment, argued by someone who has never read the thing. And now, abortion, which apparently will be overturned "automatically" if he appoints pro-life judges.

21:19: No, Donald, you can't rip the baby out of the womb in the 9th month. I mean, FFS.

21:22: It took fully 15 minutes for him to descend into a stream-of-consciousness. That's pretty good self-control. (Did he just say "bad hombres?")

21:24: This, from my cousin.

21:26: No score after 4. Arguably more useful for the typical Chicagoan than this debate.

21:29: You know, in any other election, it would be really weird for a major candidate to say that the Russians have committed espionage against her campaign.

21:32: This is a long way from Lincoln-Douglas, isn't it?

21:36: "You're not going to find a quote from me." Oh, dearie dearie dear.

21:40: She's going to double my taxes? I'm absolutely certain that is mathematically impossible for me, but if she doubled your taxes it would still be...what, zero?

21:49: "Excuse me. My turn."

21:54: So...he's projecting the incitement to violence that he has perpetrated, onto her?

21:55: Apparently some people have objected to the Ewoks comment at 21:24. This only proves the Ewok Line.

22:01: Trump is calling the Clinton Foundation a "criminal enterprise." Half of all people being treated for HIV-AIDS in the world are getting it from the Foundation. Criminally, I suppose.

22:04: "There's no way to know if he's telling the truth" because he hasn't released his tax returns. "Undocumented immigrants in America are paying more in income tax than a billionaire."

22:06: "Will you absolutely accept the results of this election?" "I will look at it at the time."

22:16: "Google 'Donald Trump Iraq.'"

22:21: Trump keeps referring to "the Great Migration." Is he suggesting Clinton is responsible for African-Americans moving from the rural southern U.S. to northern cities?

22:25: Oh, FFS, Matthews. The national debt isn't in itself an issue. Why is this so hard for people? Read Krugman on IS = LM.

22:30: And the last question of this debate cycle is a right-wing hobby horse. Yes, there is bias in the media, and it's pro-Republican.

22:32: "Such a nasty woman." Projection much?

22:34: Final answer of the 2016 debates. Not a moment too soon.

22:37: That is the last time I will ever voluntarily listen to Donald Trump speak in my life. I know he'll be in the news for the next few weeks, but damn, I can't even.

James Fallows says something that I've been thinking for a while:

To a first order of approximation, everything that Donald Trump has said about his opponents should be understood as projection, in the psychological sense of the term. That is, any defect Trump has complained about in his primary or general-election opponents, is more likely to seem an obvious flaw in himself.

Trump called Ted Cruz “Lyin’ Ted,” and Cruz has his moments. But no other politician of any party approaches Trump’s level of nonstop falsehood on matters large and small. Trump says that Hillary Clinton is secretive and scheming, and she too has her moments. But no other modern politician has matched Trump’s secrecy about his business operations or his taxes. He is hyper-attentive to other people’s weight gains, but is quite pudgy himself.

With that buildup, here is the latest what the hell? moment from the Trump campaign:  his suggestion today in New Hampshire that the candidates take a drug test before the third and final presidential debate.

I have no grounds for suggesting that Trump himself needs to be tested for drugs. But if anyone were to suggest that, wild claims like this would be part of the case.

Maybe all that sniffing at the first two debates had something to it...

First, from Crain's, an exploration of the ghost town inside Naperville, Ill., where millions of dollars evaporated when the housing bubble burst in 2008:

At the height of the building boom, Novack estimates, there were 88 homebuilders working in Naperville. "Everyone was building homes then," he says. "It was the best business to be in." The bust took that figure down to "maybe a dozen," Novack says, though in recent years it's grown back to around 30. Homebuilding has been in a trough throughout the region, not only in Naperville. Builders sold 25,105 new homes in the Chicago area in 2006, according to Schaumburg-based industry tracker Tracy Cross & Associates, and in 2015 sold less than 15 percent of that.

If only Alan Greenspan had taken an economic view instead of an ideological one in the mid-2000s and put the brakes on runaway lending. Oh, and if we'd had financial oversight. But Republicans believe in everyone making it on their own: i.e., the richest making it on their own by not having to deal with the protections we put in place in the 1930s and 1940s, the last time this happened.

Meanwhile, in New Jersey, the incoming Christie administration moved money around the state budget to cut taxes, and he cancelled an enormous Hudson River tunnel project ostensibly to protect the state from cost overruns. The effects of his policies (which are consistent with Republican ideology) were calamitous for public transport. The New York Times explains in detail the effects on New Jersey Transit in particular:

Under the administration of Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, the state subsidy for the railroad has plunged by more than 90 percent. Gaping holes in the agency’s past two budgets were filled by fare increases and service reductions or other cuts. And plans for a new tunnel under the Hudson River — one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in the country — were torpedoed by Mr. Christie, who pushed for some of the money to be diverted to road-building projects. 

The result can be felt by commuters daily. So far this year, the railroad has racked up at least 125 major train delays, about one every two days. Its record for punctuality is declining, and its trains are breaking down more often — evidence that maintenance is suffering.

Midway through Mr. Christie’s first year as governor, New Jersey Transit was spending about $1.35 billion on projects to maintain and improve service. By the middle of last year, that figure had fallen by more than half, to about $600 million.

Again, Republican low-tax, low-service policies benefit the rich (who don't care about public services but do care about taxes) at the expense of everyone else (who pay much less in taxes to begin with but do care about public services).

With 26 days until the election, maybe we should pay attention to down-ballot races and their consequences. You want to make America great again? Quit electing people who don't care about you.