“He has taught us how to deal with him,” explained one top official in Governor Bruce Rauner’s administration when asked why the governor has once again cranked up his public criticism of House Speaker Michael Madigan.

You may already know that the governor blasted both Madigan and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel during an appearance on Dan Proft’s WIND radio program last week.

After accusing Emanuel of being “afraid” to take on Madigan, Rauner said the reason for this was self-evident: “The speaker has been the most powerful politician in the state of Illinois for decades. It’s the main reason we’re in such big trouble as a state.”

Rauner went on to essentially blame Illinois’ “long-term, slow death spiral” on Madigan and said the majority party “likes the status quo,” claiming the speaker is “not sensitive” to the real-world problems of the middle class. “He’s got a great system; he controls it. And right now they’re unwilling to change. And without change, we’ll never get a true balanced budget."

So what happened here? The governor seemed to mute his criticisms of Madigan in the closing weeks of 2015, even mostly holding his fire when Madigan skipped the last leaders’ meeting just before the holidays.

New year, new attitude, apparently.

An October/November survey by the Harvard Institute of Politics and covering the midsection (adults between 18 and 29) of the "millennial" demographic found that after the November terror attacks in France (but before the December 2 attack in San Bernardino), that demographic's support for deployment of U.S. ground troops against the Islamic State in Iraq & Syria jumped from 47 percent to 60 percent.

But when asked a followup question - "If the United States needed additional troops to combat the Islamic State, how likely would you be to serve?" - 85 percent responded "probably won't join" or "won't join."

This issue's cover story on the business of medical marijuana brings into focus just how hypocritical and duplicitous state government can be when donning its cloak of benevolence. Many people I know were cheering about Illinois making "pot legal for medicinal purposes," seeing the move as a harbinger of more state-government largesse to come. Re-legalizing self-medicating with a plant that one can grow on one's kitchen windowsill, anywhere in America, is really the auctioning of privilege that politicians and bureaucrats will use to fortify their fiefdoms and power structures.

Here's what the Chicago Police Department told the media in after LaQuan McDonald was killed by a police officer 13 months ago: A drug-addled black kid lunged at a cop with a knife and was then shot in the chest.

Six months later, and a week after Chicago's mayoral election, the city council rushed through approval of a $5-million settlement with McDonald's family, even though no lawsuit had been filed.

Seven months after that, the city finally released the dashboard video from a Chicago police car, which clearly showed McDonald walking away from the police when he was shot 16 times - and almost all of those shots were fired as he lay bleeding to death on the pavement.

Before the officer shot him, everybody failed that kid: