Earlier this year, when it was disclosed that Governor Pat Quinn's budget director had handed out two pay raises to top staffers on the same day that the governor signed the income-tax increase into law, Illinois Republican Party Chair Pat Brady said the move was evidence of a "void in leadership."

I tend to ignore or downplay most pay-raise stories unless they're particularly egregious. Unlike the government-haters, I try to understand that the benefits of employee morale and retention are as important in government as they are in the private sector, where raises for mid- to high-level executives are the norm, not the exception.

There's definitely a market for these sorts of stories, however. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported September 15 that real average weekly earnings are in a national deflationary slide and suffered a 2.5-percent drop over the previous year. So, it's easy to see how taxpayers would be susceptible to reporting that purports to show that their government isn't acting responsibly during a crisis.

(Editor's note: A related commentary, "#OccupyWallStreet Is More Than a Hashtag. It's Revolution in Formation," can be found here.)

"Wall Street got drunk [...] It got drunk and now it's got a hangover." - George W. Bush

As usual, Bush got it wrong. Wall Street soberly and cynically got the rest of us drunk on dreams of home ownership, a robust stock portfolio, and a cozy retirement. This slurry bacchanal was fueled by the housing bubble and, when that exploded in our faces, bailouts saved Wall Street from any hangover, so it's us who will suffer through a torturous, decades-long headache of a ruined economy.

But who are us, exactly? Us are the poor and the middle class, unions, retirement funds, and governments at all levels - federal, state, and city. Us are 99 percent, according to the mostly young protesters at Liberty Park in New York City. (Dubbed "Occupy Wall Street," this encampment in the financial district began on September 17 and, until videos of police brutality hit the Web, had gone largely unreported in the mainstream media.)

Nearly everyone got ripped off, including the cops guarding these protesters. As a protest sign sweetly and innocently demands: "Say Sorry! To All of Us!"

Republicans on September 22 chose Linn County GOP Co-Chair Cindy Golding as their candidate for the Iowa Senate District 18 special election, which could alter control of the Iowa Senate.

Golding, of rural Cedar Rapids, won with 51.6 percent of the weighted vote cast by the 50 delegates who gathered in the Longbranch Hotel & Convention Center in Cedar Rapids.

She defeated former U.S. Attorney Matt Dummermuth of Robins, who placed second with 28.1 percent of the vote, and Marion businesswoman Mary Rathje, who received 20.2 percent of the vote. Governor Terry Branstad encouraged Rathje to run, gubernatorial spokesperson Tim Albrecht confirmed September 23.

The battle for control of the Iowa Senate got underway Monday, with Republican Mary Rathje announcing her candidacy for a vacant Senate seat and a gay-rights group emphasizing the importance of the November 8 special election.

"This is it. We are facing a special election, and marriage equality hangs in the balance," wrote Troy Price, executive director of One Iowa - the state's largest gay-rights advocacy group - in an e-mail to supporters. "If we lose the seat, we face a very real chance that a marriage ban will pass a vote in the Senate. In Iowa, marriage has never been threatened like this before."

Swati Dandekar (D-Marion) resigned Friday from the Iowa Senate to take a $137,000-a-year job with the three-member Iowa Utilities Board, which regulates Iowa's utilities. The move threatens Democrats' majority in the Iowa Senate, now reduced to 25-24.

The turn of events is key, because Democrats' slim majority in the Iowa Senate prevented passage this year of Republican priorities ranging from a public vote on same-sex marriage to sweeping property-tax reform to a bill that Democrats criticized as bringing an end to collective bargaining.