Amy Barrett (Screen shot.)

Nor will they in this, the second day of the hearings into the confirmation of Amy Barrett to the Supreme Court.

As if throwing in the towel, Democrats have used their time in the hearings not to plumb the depths of Barrett’s intelligence and commitment to the law, but as free campaign time to deliver a lecture to voters about the dangers of a court in which conservatives–for the first time in years–would have more voices on the court than the radical left.

Republicans used their time to adhere to constitutional and legal topics during their time, except for Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz who met the Democrats on their own ground and kicked in their teeth.

Cruz raised the specter of a court dominated by the likes of the four liberal judges and Senate Democrats whose voting record constituted an extreme challenge to the cherished Bill of Rights. (Transcript is here. Entire remarks are in video below.) He said:

The entire Bill of Rights is incredibly important to Americans. I also think what is really striking about this hearing today and also yesterday is that Senate Democrats are not defending what I think is really a radical agenda that they have when it comes to the Bill of Rights. And the topics they’re discussing today have little bearing to the rights that are really at issue and in jeopardy at the Supreme Court.

The four liberal justices, he pointed out, were one vote short in one case of outlawing the individual ownership of a gun by agreeing with a Washington D.C. ordinance banning any kind any gun. That’s not an issue about “reasonable” gun regulation–as Democrats deceptively argue–but an issue about whether individuals can own guns at all.

Regarding freedom of speech, Cruz pointed to  Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in which “a small nonprofit organization based in D.C.” could be fined for airing and promoting “a movie critical of a politician,” namely Hilary Clinton, that liberals argued constituted  forbidden “electioneering communication.” In other words, the government could censor speech that was critical of a politician, he noted, and by extension could likewise censor such books.

As far as religious freedom goes, Senate Democrats represent the radical view of what they want from the Supreme Court. He said:

I’m sorry to say Senate Democrats introduced legislation to gut the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act when it passed this body, passed with an overwhelming bipartisan majority. Senate Democrats, including Chuck Schumer, and Joe Biden, and Ted Kennedy, all voted for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Democratic President Bill Clinton signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. And yet in the wake of the Hobby Lobby decision, this body voted on legislation to just gut the protections for religious liberty. And I’m sorry to say every single Senate Democrat voted to do so. Not a single one, zero, would defend religious liberty.”

Cruz also meet head-on the Democrat senators’ carping about how “dark money” is funding Republican campaigns:

First of all, our Democratic colleagues, when they address the issue of so-called “dark money” in campaign-finance contributions, are often deeply, deeply hypocritical and don’t address the actual facts that exist. Here’s some facts. Of the top 20 organizations spending money for political speech in the year 2016, 14 of them gave virtually all of their money to Democrats, and another three split the money evenly…. So, all of the great umbrage about the corporate interests spending ‘dark money’ is wildly in conflict with the actual facts that the corporate interests that are spending “dark money” are funding the Democrats by a factor of 3 to 1 or greater.

In an abortion-related issue, Cruz referred to the case of  The Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania.

The Little Sisters of the Poor, our Catholic Convent of nuns, who take oaths of poverty, who devote their lives to caring for the sick, caring for the needy, caring for the elderly, and the Obama administration litigated against the little sisters of the poor, seeking to fine them in order to force them to pay for abortion-inducing drugs* among others.

In that instance, the federal government was prosecuting nuns for exercising their right not to have to fund government activity that violated their consciences.

Another liberal judge on the court would also ensure the legality of an abortion is a fundamental and unchallengeable right for any reason at any time for the entire term of pregnancy, including partial birth abortion at the moment of birth. That is an unpopular view among Americans, polls show.

Like Democrats, Cruz was engaging in a campaign argument, beyond the scope of the hearings. But it had to be done to illustrate just how dangerous a court that genuflects to the radical progressive agenda will be. The kind of court that Democrats want.

A side note: Democrats thought they were cornering Barrett by displaying pictures of what they said were victims of Republican policies. How would they have acted if the other side had posted pictures of aborted infants, who are victims of Democratic policies and court decisions?

*The abortion industry railed against Cruz, accusing him of inaccurately calling birth control drugs “abortion-inducing” drugs. Truth is, he was referring to a particular class of drugs that indeed induce death. Planned Parenthood itself calls it the “abortion pill.”

The current stock market levels are very misleading, as the indices are all artificially inflated by Federal government intervention. Eventually reality will set in, and we’ll all come down to Earth, but there is still some reason to be bullish going forward.

One reason is that the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index, formerly known as the consumer confidence index, is now at its highest level since the coronavirus pandemic broke out and hamstrung the economy. Apparently, the consumer market in the world’s richest country is feeling better right now about the state of things that at any previous point during COVID.

And that could mean American consumers now have more disposable income available for entertainment spending, such as playing real money pokies at online casinos, wagering with daily fantasy sports or the now legalized betting on NFL and college football. While much of the American economy has re-opened, the entertainment and travel sectors remain largely shut down.

That disposable income which would be funneled into these industries is being saved/spent in other areas. As we profiled before, the entertainment economy, pretty much anything you can call an “event” or something you need to buy a ticket to, is down on the canvas for awhile yet. 

The University of Michigan (so #GoBlue and “those who stay will remain champions”) consumer sentiment level rose to a 6 month high in its last report, hitting 78.9, up from 74.1, but still a far cry from pre-pandemic levels. It was 22 points highers before COVID hit, and historically, a number around 100 is far more the norm. Still, this might be the most exciting to happen with his metric since satirical news outlet The Onion posted a brief article Consumer Confidence Verging on Cockiness, a couple decades ago.

Consumer Confidence/Sentiment is just one of several metrics for taking a good temperature of the economy at any given moment. There is also the Beige Book, which the Federal Reserve publishes eight times a year, in advance of Federal Open Market Committee. 

Each report gathers “anecdotal information on current economic conditions” by each Federal Reserve Bank in its district from “Bank and Branch directors and interviews with key business contacts, economists, market experts, and others.”

There is also the PPI (Producer Price Index), which is a group of indices that calculates and represents the average movement in selling prices from domestic production over time. It’s researched, calculated and published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Finally, you have jobless claims, an oft-quoted and largely mis-represented and misunderstood metric. No matter what much of the media tells you, these numbers are not the unemployment rate much like the stock market is not the economy. It’s simply people who filed for unemployment benefits that week.

It is not people who are unemployed, but didn’t file and it is not a measure including those who are jobless, but don’t qualify for benefits, nor those who are unemployed and have seen their benefits reach completion.

Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Tribune and SB Nation. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.

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My annual review of Chicago’s new construction is one of my favorite posts of the year because it really helps me and others get a read on which neighborhoods are on the move and how fast it’s happening. Want to know where gentrification is happening? Just look for the new single family homes being built around the city. If you see a cluster of $800K homes then you know gentrification is well underway in that neighborhood. A cluster of $600 – 700K homes would be in a neighborhood at an earlier stage and a neighborhood with new homes around $500K would be at the very beginning stages.

This year my list – new homes currently on the market or sold in the last 12 months – is down to only 572 from 632 last year. The fact that only 8.7% of the new homes built were listed below $400 K speaks to the high housing costs in Chicago, despite the fact that Chicago is the most affordable global city on the planet. Only 18.2% were below $500 K. So Chicago really is a city for the rich and becoming even more so as evidenced by the fact that 33% of these homes were above $1 MM. 6.6% were above $2 MM.

I mapped all of these homes below so that at glance you can see where the action is.

Chicago’s Single Family Home New Construction Mapped

Each home is represented by a balloon, color coded according to price. Clicking on a balloon reveals some basic information on the home such as address, list price, sale price (if it sold), size, and community area. You can also click on the colored community areas to identify them and clicking on the icon in the upper left corner will display the price legend. You can also share the map, pan it, zoom it or expand it for a better view.

The pattern of what is being built and where has been pretty consistent now for a few years. All the activity is west of Clark and prices go down as you go north, south, or west. And, for the most part, development seems to occur in clusters. Nobody wants to be the only new home in an area. And $1.5 MM homes are being built west of Western.

Chicago New Single Family Home Construction Activity By Neighborhood

I also aggregated the number of homes by community area and graphed the top 20 below. The ranking of these areas is very close to what we saw last year. However, Grand Boulevard (contains much of Bronzeville) has even more going on this year than last. On the other hand, once you get past Logan Square you start to see some sizeable dropoffs in activity from last year. Jefferson Park and Portage Park appear to be new additions to the top 20 list this year.

Grand Boulevard and Logan Square remain the hottest areas for new construction single family homes in Chicago

Average New Single Family Home Prices By Neighborhood

Looking at the average list prices of these new homes tells us a lot about the community areas they are in. So I took my top 20 list from above and calculated those averages and graphed them below – high to low. It’s no surprise that the homes being built in Lincoln Park, Near North Side, and Lake View are at the top of the list. Generally speaking, the average price of the homes being built in all neighborhoods are up slightly over last year. Once again the top 6 community areas all average above $1 MM.

This year the bottom 4 community areas all averaged less than $500 K, compared to only 3 last year. Humboldt Park jumped higher on the list this year with an average above $700 K! Grand Boulevard is still averaging just over $600 K.

The average price of a new construction single family home in Chicago inched up in most neighborhoods

#ChicagoNewConstruction #ChicagoRealEstate #NewConstruction #ChicagoNewHomes

Gary Lucido is the President of Lucid Realty, the Chicago area’s full service real estate brokerage that offers home buyer rebates and discount commissions. If you want to keep up to date on the Chicago real estate market or get an insider’s view of the seamy underbelly of the real estate industry you can Subscribe to Getting Real by Email using the form below. Please be sure to verify your email address when you receive the verification notice.

We watched with dismay as we heard about the militias gathering in Kenosha to allegedly protect lives and property. No one denounced them until the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin did so. The Sheriff of Kenosha County skirted around the issue by saying words to the effect that they were not invited.

Trump is encouraging these groups by his statements with regard to the activities in Charlotte and by letting the husband and wife team who brandished guns at protesters participate in the RNC.

As the old saw goes, “Those who ignore history are bound to repeat it.” The Nazi Party began as Brown Shirts, a vigilante group, who first pushed people around and then after the Nazi Party seized power, started to perpetuate violence and unspeakable wrongs.

By encouraging the militia groups, Kenosha local law enforcement was responsible for two deaths and one wounding.  In addition, the young man who allegedly did the shootings is going to have his life ruined even if he is not convicted.

Now, we have an alleged conspiracy by a militia group to kidnap and harm two state governors.  Again, Trump was the enabler, tweeting to his minions to “liberate Michigan.”

Wisconsin’s and Michigan’s open carry laws and the encouragement of “unofficial militias” should be taken care of in order to prevent further horrors like these from taking place.

We have another beer-related casualty of the COVID pandemic, but hopefully only a temporary one.

Ballast Point’s Chicago operation in HydePark has posted to their Facebook page:

With the winter months ahead and our ability to generate revenue significantly impacted with limited capacity due to COVID-19, we have made the very difficult decision to shut down operations at Ballast Point in Chicago effective October 24th. At that time, we are halting all on-site retail, brewery production, and taproom operations. Unfortunately, this decision impacts all of our Chicago employees. We are forever grateful for their contributions to our company. Our plan is to reopen this location when the weather is favorable and it is safe to dine indoors.

Ballast Point has some Oktoberfest specials still scheduled for this weekend.

Friday, October 16

Saturday, October 17

Sunday, October 18