ILLINOIZE: October 2006

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Scary Stuff

During the course of trick or treating with our daughter this evening, I had at least four different neighbors tell me about how sick they are of the incessant onslaught of campaign ads. And not just the campaign ads, but the endless drone of negative messages.

Completely unscientifically, it seems that negative ads are comprising about 80% of the ads that we are seeing on the airwaves. What is interesting is that while the consistent reply from the public seems to be against these messages, common sense and empirical data reflect the fact that the ads achieve their intended results.

Case in point, while the majority of Illinoisans are wondering what Judy's thinking, very few people can actually cite any policy differences between Topinka and Blagojevich. And the same thing goes for races at virtually every level. Issues take a back seat to attacks, and at the end of the day, nobody wins.

It would be refreshing to see an election that was driven by issues not spin, but I think it would take an engaged electorate to demand that it happen. For now, it seems that people find it easier to just change the channel.

To read, or post, comments, visit Open House

Onward to Victory

Jon Carson emails me,

Dear Friend,

The election is just one week from today and still Peter Roskam has no plan or position on Iraq. Instead of offering real solutions, he offers empty bumper sticker slogans like “stay the course” and “finish well.”

October has been the deadliest month this year in Iraq and our troops deserve better than these meaningless slogans. Well, real solutions and plans are something they get from one of their own – Tammy Duckworth. Throughout the campaign, Tammy has offered a very clear and achievable plan for Iraq. She wants to tie the train up of the Iraqi forces to the draw down of American troops and believes in setting real benchmarks that would help us reach our goal.

Help send someone to Congress who will offer real solutions, make a contribution of $50, $100 or $200.

If elected, Peter Roskam would not hold the Bush Administration accountable for its management of the war in Iraq. Rather, he would simply rubber stamp the failed policies of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Not only has he not offered a position on Iraq, he has actually accused Tammy of wanting to “cut and run.” So I ask you, who is more likely to “cut and run” from a challenge: Tammy Duckworth, a battle-tested Black Hawk helicopter pilot who has served in Iraq or Peter Roskam, a career politician who will say and do anything to get elected?

Let’s elect someone who will hold the Bush Administration accountable for its failed policies in Iraq, make a contribution of $50, $100 or $200.

Peter “Rubber Stamp” Roskam offers more of the same. Tammy, on the other hand, offers a much needed change.

Onward to Victory,

And John Kerry tells me.

It's Not Over Until...

Cross-posted from ICPR's blog, The Race is On:

If you’ve been watching the A1’s come in, you’ve seen a lot of money changing hands lately. Illinois’ disclosure system provides an almost-realtime viewing opportunity for campaign money. But each report is just one snapshot of one brief set of transactions. Want to keep track of the bigger picture? ICPR and the Sunshine Project have tabulated the biggest races and the biggest donors. They’re posted to our website. Check back for regular updates between now and Election Day.

And if you’re looking for a reason to be glad when it’s over, look no further. Two days after the Election, on Thursday, November 9th, ICPR welcomes former U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald, who will talk about how Patrick Fitzgerald became U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois. If concerns about corruption are motiviating your vote one way or another, you owe it to yourself to come find out how we got the current crime fighter. But let us know soon; reservations are $75, and we need to hear from you by Friday the 3rd.

Gubernatorial Wives' Work Ethics--Now & Then

When Governor Jim Thompson was in office, Jayne, an attorney, would not take any case in state court.

Any legal business she did was in federal court.

Now comes the first Democrat since Thompson and what does wife Patti do?

She does business with now indicted Governor Rod Blagojevich’s fundraiser Tony Rezko and “a woman who holds a longstanding no-bid state contract,” Chicago Tribune reporter Ray Long writes.

Governor Rod “Not Me” says such critics are “Neanderthal and sexist.”

Also on McHenry County Blog today, Blagojevich's direct mail to hard R's.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Dems Lie About Scheurer Financing

8th congressional district anti-war candidate Bill Scheurer has been churning out press releases. McHenry County Blog is probably the only place they get published.

In yesterday's release about anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan's endorsement ("Make One Democrat Pay") was a paragraph about a forthcoming negative mailing from the Democratic Party's Congressional Campaign Committee--run by Chicago Congressman Rahm Emanuel. It must have just arrived because here is what the campaign has to say about what it calls "Slime."

Democrat Mailer Slimes Scheurer
It's official. The Democrats are running scared. Despite their successful efforts to spin the media with false polls that under-report the growing momentum of his campaign, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has now unleashed a desperate attack piece against independent Moderate Party candidate Bill Scheurer.

Among its notable lies, the piece says that Republicans have "propped up" the Scheurer campaign "with hundreds of thousands of dollars." Federal Election Commission reports plainly show that Scheurer has not received a single penny from Republicans.

In fact, over half his money came from major unions that backed incumbent Democrat Melissa Bean in 2004. Scheurer has raised less than $50,000.

"I wish it was true," says Scheurer. "If we had that kind of money to reach voters, we would be winning this thing by a landslide!"

The mailer also oddly attempts to connect Scheurer with George Bush. Bean is widely regarded as a "Bush Democrat" for voting with the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress on nearly every major issue, while Scheurer is a consistent outspoken critic of Bush and agrees with him on almost nothing.

In the height of irony, the DCCC direct mail piece also accuses Republicans of "playing dirty tricks" and trying to win "by backhanded, slimy tricks." The Republicans have no connection with the Scheurer campaign.

However, it was the Democrats who carried out a series of dirty tricks and outright fraud in its efforts to try to keep Scheurer off the November ballot. His Moderate Party had to file a lawsuit in federal court against the DCCC, its chairman Rahm Emanuel, and other leading Democrats for criminal fraud to make them back off.

Asked about the sleazy ad, Scheurer could only laugh. "Abraham Lincoln once said, after being ridden out of town on a rail: 'But for the honor of it, I would have rather walked.' That about sums it up for me."

Welcome, Mr. Scheurer, to the strange and twisted world of big-time politics.

Also at McHenry County Blog, an article about Cindy Sheehan's endorsement of Bill Scheurer.

Hugo(t)Those Machines?

Here's a link to the New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/washington/29ballot.

"But after a municipal primary election in Chicago in March, Sequoia voting machines were blamed for a series of delays and irregularities. Smartmatic’s new president, Jack A. Blaine, acknowledged in a public hearing that Smartmatic workers had been flown up from Venezuela to help with the vote.

Hitting my 54th year on terra firma on Election Day - November 8th. Going to start the day off with a stroll up to Kean for coffee and the Daily Southtown, clean the cat-box, and then up breeze east to the Quaker Meetin' House at 106th & Artesian to exercise the public franchise.

The good folks at the 23rd Precinct of the 19th Ward do their best to make the sacred process work ( Republican & Democrat) and leave the BS to Rush the Dope Fiend and Smarter- Than -God Crowd. Only thing is - that we, Chicagoans, are still strapped with Hugo Chavez's voting machines.Take a look at the NYT link above. I was bothered that my ballot needed to be treated like a handicapped blind man hitting icey pavement, by the Voting judges last go round and, not so much, by Hugo's peeing in George's Wheaties at the United Nations this summer.

Could be that Progressive America's favorite democratically elected dictator might be as swell as 'The Beard Himself.' What Chicago elected official helped buy these fine products and helped our Latin American friends?

He probably thinks that Noam Chomsky is a whacking good read, too. Go figure.

JS picks up on weeks-old Schock campaign dirt, buries it below routine coverage

Molly Parker of the Journal Star did get around to reporting on the Carla Grube/Freedom House controversy in the Aaron Schock campaign. That story is at the bottom of today's Word on the Street column I've written about it after having read about it at Willy Nilly's site. I don't believe for one second that they found out about this from the Bureau County Republican.

I have several thoughts:

The article ran below a segment discussing the departure of Eric Lane, who is described as Bill Spears campaign manager and whose salary is paid by the Illinois Democratic Party. Spears says Lane was never his campaign manager and I'm fairly certain from earlier conversations that the party organization wasn't paying his salary. If so, his movement from one campaign to another says nothing about how the party feels about Spears' chances of defeating Schock.

In journalism, the bigger story leads. Why was the tale of the transplanted staffer considered juicier than the other story, which involved possible illegal hiring, possible violation of rules against non-profits getting involved in politics and with sexual harassment by a female employer against male staffers, and this person's involvement in Aaron Schock's campaign. Shouldn't that story be the one greeting reader's first? Schock's campaign manager, Steve Shearer, served on the Board of Directors of Freedom House and once shared a home with Grube.

I'm NOT complaining about Molly writing about Bill Spears in less that glowing detail. This is the kind of story that political reporting is all about -- who's up and who's down, who's coming and who's going and why. I just think the two segments ran in the wrong order, and that the newspaper did Molly -- accused far too often of being overly fond of Schock -- new favors by doing so.

C rossposted to Peoria Pundit

As predicted, JS endorses Aaron Schock, and as predicted, the piece is full of half-truths, omits key details and deliberately misinforms readers

I knew from before he announced he was going to run against Aaron Schock (R.-92nd Ill House) that the Journal Star was going to come after Bill Spears^*, both on the news pages and even more so on the editorial page. So I wasn't surprised at the smarmy little comments they tossed his way in today's endorsement for Schock.

Spears is a member of the Peoria City Council, and tends to vote with the council's "essential services first" wing. You know, the people who are in favor of the sort of things the Journal Star editorial board has always been in favor of, such as the downtown museum project, as well as most of the cockamamie taxpayer-supported economic development projects that have come down the pike.

You cannot underestimate how much the Journal Star powers-that-be hate these people and wants to see them punished for opposing their agenda.

Honestly though, while the piece was annoying and insulting, it could have been worse. They could have used the tactics they tried during the last municipal election, and try to make Spears out to be a racist. That was what they did to Mayor Ardis other 'essential services" candidates. There's still more than a week until the election, so we may yet see a few convoluted attempts to make Spears out to be a bigot.

That this piece lacks a blatant race card is the best thing I can say about it. It truly is a hatchet job.

They accuse Spears of having all sorts of expensive goals, but with being "vague on specifics" about how to pay for them. Then, they complain that he doesn't support building more prisons. If Schock mentioned specifics, I didn't see them mentioned.

This paragraph was especially misleading:

He's no fan of Ameren and would freeze electric rates until there's marketplace competition, which makes for a good sound bite but represents a real Catch-22 for the utilities and their customers who desire both affordable and reliable power. Given the God-awful deregulation bill the Legislature passed in 1997, competition may never develop for residential users. A forever freeze is not the answer.

Ummm ... excuse me, but doesn't supporting a freeze "until there's marketplace competition" mean that Spears specifically does NOT support the "forever freeze" that has the editorialists so worried? And Spears' position is misrepresented. He wants a freeze NOW to keep the rate hike from going into effect while a compromise or at least a better bill is worked out. Spears supports a specific bill, Schock does not, although he says he wants a compromise.

And the award-winning (snicker) editorial page leaves out a few important details, such as the fact that Schock has received campaign donations from the energy companies that are benefiting from the high price of fuel. The Journal Star has criticized Spears for "negative campaigning" for daring to mention this fact in his ads. Well, it's a good thing that Spears mentioned it, 'cause that's the sort of embarrassing information that Peoria's one and only newspaper of record doesn't go out of its way to print in regular news articles. Growing up in Peoria, I didn't realize until I left that most newspapers actually actually like it when they get to tell their readers information like that.

And get this:

As a former School Board member, he's knowledgeable on school finance issues and wants to reduce the reliance on property taxes.

(Easy there, stomach. This will all be over soon)

Would this be Peoria School District 150, whose budget collapsed like a house of cards during Schock's tenure as board president? This was the same budget he bragged about during his first campaign? The same budget he told conservative voters he personally went through and cut line item by line item? That same budget he later claimed was 100 percent the fault of Kay Royster? Is that what the JS means by "knowledgeable on school finance?"

And let's discuss this phrase "wants to reduce the reliance on property taxes." Really? Is that what Mr. Schock was doing when he testified to fellow legislators that virtually everyone in Peoria -- including, incorrectly, the Peoria City Council -- was in favor of to Senate Bill 2477, which would allow the Public Building Commission to authorize bonds for construction and levy property taxes on District 150's behalf. Governor Blagojevich vetoed this bill, but if the Senate overrides it, then taxpayers will be forced to pay for the district's unpopular building program -- through property taxes.

I got a kick out of the editorial's description of Spears as "the 49-year-old Democrat, Peoria city councilman, local plumber and salesman." Heh. Spears was certainly a plumber. He seemed to know what he was doing, because Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 63 chose him to be their business manager. Google is filled with examples of the JS describing him as a "plumber turned salesman." Hmmm ... I wonder if the JS ever described their "wonder boy" as a former ticket-scalper turned investor in student rental property.

The editorial says "[n]otably, he has been one of the few legislators to stay above the fray this election season, refusing to go negative." That's not what Spears says, claiming that Schock has been very negative about Spears in face-to-face encounters when there isn't a camera there collecting evidence. What's more honest, a "negative" campaign ad that relates unpleasant but accurate details to voters, or whisper and smear campaigns? The JS editorialists prefer "plausible deniability" when it comes to negative campaigning.

Also, I suggest that it's fundamentally dishonest for any newspaper editorial to praise a candidate for running an honest campaign while ignoring the fact that this same candidate has been using the same campaign tactics he not two years earlier criticized his opponent for doing. Schock complained Ricca Slone was using her franking privilege to send "information" to constituents that were little more than campaign ads. Schock has done the exact same thing this year, but managed to dishonestly imply that he was enjoying the support of politicians and public officials who most certainly were not supporting him.

And finally, there is this:

This is the most hotly contested race in central Illinois, with mind-boggling spending. Spears' record as a councilman speaks better of him than his performance in this campaign. But elections such as these are always a referendum on the incumbent. Aaron Schock has done a good job, and he is solidly endorsed.

First, Schock is solidly outspending Spears. Second, if Spears were running for re-election to the city council against an opponent with a chance to win, they world have absolutely no praise for his record as a city council member. None. Trust me on this. And what's with "elections such as these are always a referendum on the incumbent." Says who? The JS? Hey, we're not hiring an employee. Were electing a a policy maker and a leader. Decisions like this must be based on issues of character and honesty as much as whether they are "hardworking." For this job, you pick someone who's relatively independent and honest and shares your values.

* In the interest of full disclosure: Bill Spears is a personal friend of mine, and my support of his campaign extends beyond just writing favorable articles.

Cross posted to Peoria Pundit

Sunday, October 29, 2006

Amtrak expansion starts Monday: Chicago-Springfield schedule now convenient

In exciting news for our state's economic development, Amtrak expansion is starting tomorrow.

The Illinois General Assembly and Governor Blagojevich get the credit for coming up with the money for the expanded service, and Senator Durbin has done a ton of work to make sure a last-minute monkey wrench thrown by one of the freight railroad companies that owns part of tracks didn't derail the expansion.

Here is the expanded schedule.

To make it easier for the lobbyists, staffers and electeds who might want to take a train from Chicago to Springfield, here's the deal:

There are now 5 daily trains leaving Chicago to Springfield.

There's a 7 a.m. express train that stops in Joliet and Bloomington-Normal before arriving in Springfield at 10:15 am. How cool is that? That's the only express train in the schedule.

Then a 9:15 am that arrives in Springfield at 12:20 pm.

A 2:00 pm train that arrives in Springfield at 5:30 pm (that's the train that goes all the way to Texas).

A 5:15 pm train that arrives in Springfield at 8:39 pm (very convenient for working days in Chicago).

And finally a 7:00 pm train that arrives in Springfield at 10:24 pm, so you can grab dinner before you come back to Springfield. That's a great return train for day trips for fun up to Chicago.

All of these southbound trains will continue to run pretty much on time.

The northbound trains have been a problem with on-time performance, because one of them can run very late. Now with 4 reliable northbound trains, there isn't a problem with northbound Amtrak travel. Here's the new schedule (just Springfield to Chicago -- full schedule available here).

The early morning train leaves Springfield at 6:33 am and arrives in Chicago at 9:55 am. Very good for working meetings -- and memo to all state department heads: please schedule morning meetings for 10:30 am and not before so your Springfield staffers can take the train and get there on time.

The next northbound leaves at two hours later at 8:33 am and arrives in Chicago at 11:55 am.

These first two trains should be very reliable, as they both start in St. Louis.

The next one leaves Springfield at 10:29 am and arrives in Chicago at 2:14 pm. However, the 10:29 am train is the Texas Eagle and that can run very late. A good trick is to check the train status of the Texas Eagle (it's train number 22) by checking www.Amtrak.com or calling 1-800-USA-RAIL as if you want to get a northbound train at noon or 2 pm, sometimes the Texas Eagle is running three or four hours late so it works out perfectly.

The next northbound train leaves Springfield at 5:07 pm and arrives in Chicago at 8:30 pm. This should be a reliable train as well, because even though it starts in Kansas City, Missouri, they build in some time in St. Louis to make up for expected delays. (The track in Missouri is a mess).

Finally, there's an after-dinner train leaving Springfield at 7:28 pm and arriving in Chicago at 10:50 pm. This is perfect for day trips to Springfield. This one starts in St. Louis, so it should be very reliable as well.

To book these tickets, visit www.Amtrak.com

Keep in mind if you are a state employee, you are eligible for a one-way state rate of $17 (unless they raised it a bit), so be sure to call 1-800-USA-RAIL and book your state rate (or ask the ticket agent at the station).

Finally, a commercial. The Midwest High Speed Rail Association is a client of mine and a main proponent of this Illinois Amtrak expansion. We're a membership-based organization, so please consider joining. You can do so here. More immediately, we're celebrating the biggest Midwest Amtrak expansion in more than a decade by riding the initial run at 7:00 am Monday morning all the way to St. Louis, having a lunch downtown at the Hyatt Regency and then riding back. Anyone is welcome to join us, particularly for the lunch at 1 pm (that's $50 per person). If you'd like to be a part of the ride, just buy a ticket. The St. Louis lunch information is available here.

Local Income Tax

Imagine my surprise when I went hunting for information about the Rockford School District election and found my idea for a local option income tax appear:

(State Reps. Dave) Winters and (Ron) Wait referenced a local option income tax, which would let voters decide through a referendum to impose a local income tax to alleviate property taxes.

Back in the mid-1970’s Jim Edgar, as a state representative, introduced the local income tax idea.It would give half the new money raised to schools and half to property tax relief.

The idea delivered a mixed message, just as today’s Senate Bill 750 does.

It co-mingles the ideas of giving more money to schools with giving some real estate property tax relief.

I cogitated on Edgar’s idea for a while and finally worked out an idea that met the widely expressed desired to switch income taxes for property taxes.

It would consist of a local option income tax. It could be done school district by school district. Later, I conceived of a county-by-county version.

The way I remember it, a petition would be passed establishing an income tax rate. It would have to be approved by local referendum.

Because people were the ones complaining about property taxes, my bill would have limited the real estate tax relief to residential property.

Statewide, almost half of property taxes are paid by businesses. If you even wonder why businessmen can support a statewide income for property tax swap, keep in mind that business pays maybe 12% of the income tax collected (down from well over 20% during the early 1970’s).

So, a tax swap is a big tax cut for business as a whole.

Whatever money was raised through the local income tax in year one would be subtracted from the real estate taxes on residential property in year two.

Of course, there would be double taxation in the first year. But, I couldn’t figure out how to cut real estate taxes without having money in the bank to replace the taxes being abated.

The referendum debate would be vibrant. I know two local school administrators who live in modest homes. Their tax burden would increase. With no new money for schools, which way would they vote?

One could predict that senior citizens would vote for it, but how would working couples vote?

My guess is that they would do a comparison of both tax schemes and vote accordingly.

And, there would be educators who figured out that the income tax brings in different amounts of cash each year. It depends on the economy. Would they want to chance property taxes fluctuating significantly?

Any referendum increases in tax rates or for bonds would still be based on the old laws.

All of the money would stay local. For most of suburbia, the so-call tax swap being pushed by the Rev. and State Senator James Meeks would take money out of suburbia.

I can’t figure out a way to force landlords to push the savings through to renters. The best answer I have is to trust market forces. Certainly, when real estate taxes go up, rents increase.

Would the reverse happen? Can’t tell you, but theory says competition should play a significant role.

The Hononegah High School event was sponsored by "Fairer Funding for Illinois Schools," a group I have not heard of before.

Always more at McHenry County Blog. Sometime Sunday, a story on Patrick Fitzgerald's sense of humor.

Two Tales -One City: Commitment & Contempt

Committed Protestor.

"Please, Come to Chicago" - we're watching Pimp My Neighbor - It's So Righteous!" Protestor 2006?

Two stories grabbed at me yesterday. One is the story linked below in a fine Daily Southtown feature. It is about the two young guys coming home from Iraq after a couple of deployments as Marines.

http://www.dailysouthtown.com/news/115751,2NWS9-29.article

The other, a story of a 'merry prankster' without the gonads of an Abbie Hoffman. Old Abbie, say what you will about the old gent, was willing to squirt out a couple of pints of his own claret to protest a war forty years ago. NOW, there is this beauty, A Coalition Guy, who, 'gave a protest but no one came' -SMIRK - causing the City of Chicago and Cook County to re-deploy hundreds of police officers from neighborhoods that can use a couple of policemen to Washington 'Bug-House' Square Area, CTA bus lines to re-route and cause confusion to businesses and neighbors. I wonder how many old people, kids, homeless families, scared tourists, and store owners would have liked to see a police officer - SOMEWHERE? I wonder what this punk's prank cost our City in terms of safety, or possibly human life? Where were you and the Coalition, Robespierre? Or, do you go by- FREE? 'The Revolution will now be a prank- and televised?' Or, was this a planned 'execution' of City of Chicago resources and finances? Sweet.

This story is about Contempt for 'the ordinary citizens' - the ones these coalition builders want to mobilize - like the two kids mentioned up above in the Daily Southtown article? I doubt that.

In fact, the Chicago Tribune's Headline seems to find it 'pretty funny' Our two gelded Chicago papers think that these clowns are just 'all that. '

"Chicago police say protesters stood them up" - Gee, I wonder if that was an eact quote from a Chicago Cop. Stood up - like a, what ?, a geek by a Cheerleader. How Punk'd is that?

Our newspapers are rags. The Limey Times barely gave the protest story any ink in favor of the 'science of Hip-Hop and the Serial Skank from Joliet.'

Here, below, is the Tribune's Tony C. Yang's "hey, no biggie" spin on what happened yesterday.'

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0610290314oct29,1,6770635.story?coll=chi-news-hed

' Starting to save another half-a-buck by avoiding the Limey Times as well as The Tribune.

Big local papers valorize contempt and sleaze. Local papers, like the Daily Southtown, print the news. Read locally and get the news. Mobilize.

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Ordinary Citizens Do Not Have Power?

Saturday's Chicago Sun Times carries an op-ed piece written by Mike Gecan of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF):

http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/114577,CST-EDT-REF28b.article

Mike Gecan of the IAF implies that ordinary citizens do not have political power. He credits the coalition building team United Power for (Action) & Justice as the key to that. Read Mike's op-ed piece.

Read also IAF Mission Statement:

"The IAF is non-ideological and strictly non-partisan, but proudly, publicly, and persistently political. The IAF builds a political base within society's rich and complex third sector - the sector of voluntary institutions that includes religious congregations, labor locals, homeowner groups, recovery groups, parents associations, settlement houses, immigrant societies, schools, seminaries, orders of men and women religious, and others. And then the leaders use that base to compete at times, to confront at times, and to cooperate at times with leaders in the public and private sectors

The IAF develops organizations that use power - organized people and organized money - in effective ways. The secret to the IAF's success lies in its commitment to identify, recruit, train, and develop leaders in every corner of every community where IAF works. The IAF is indeed a radical organization in this specific sense: it has a radical belief in the potential of the vast majority of people to grow and develop as leaders, to be full members of the body politic, to speak and act with others on their own behalf. And IAF does indeed use a radical tactic: the face-to-face, one-to-one individual meeting whose purpose is to initiate a public relationship and to re-knit the frayed social fabric.

The living reality of the IAF is overwhelmingly present in the 57 IAF affiliates functioning in 21 states, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany

Regional gatherings of those local groups - IAF East in the northeast corridor and Southwest IAF in the American southwest - also meet, plan, and take action "

Now, the alphabet soup gets more heady. United Power for (Action) & Justice has its website down and under construction but there was a link to the event here in Illinois -

http://www.lakeviewaction.org/united_power_for_action_and_just.htm

The Lakeview Action Coalition - We have the IAF, UPAJ, and LAC - all using the very same goals and objectives as this link :

http://www.leninism.org/stream/2001/mwg-faq-716.htm The goals and objectives are identical are identical to MWG

Last night, I was with about 2,000 people, all ordinary people, except for a few extrardinarily good looking women ( Hey I'm a widower - Iain't dead.), participating in the political process by raising money for a Democratic candidate. Those People are empowered with the right to vote and to exercise their God given and Constitutionally protected Right to give voice to their political opinions. Most of them seemed pretty smart and talented - it was a real coalition of workers: lawyers, teachers, tradesmen, artists ( BS and otherwise), journalists, academics, reformers, and old-timey cigar chompers. They put together a powerful statement of faith in the American political process. There are many 'coalition building fronts ' with Peoples and Workers and Mobilized and Cadres in their names. God love 'em. Ain't it great that our system of government -with its crooks and phonies and dummies popping up like whack-a-moles - makes room and even sets up microphones for alphabet soup politicos?

I do not know if telling people that they are 'powerless ordinary' folks is the way to get them to mobilize, as Mike Gecan of IAF and all the other acronyms he's fronting, but a local Democratic candidate for office sure had the folks mobilized. Tom Dart told them that they were powerful and they responded.

Friday, October 27, 2006

CQ: Hastert Aide Put the Kibosh on Corruption Investigation

Congressional Quarterly reports:

Two former House committee investigators who were examining Capitol Hill security upgrades said a senior aide to Speaker J. Dennis Hastert hindered their efforts before they were abruptly ordered to stop their probe last year.

The former Appropriations Committee investigators said Ted Van Der Meid, Hastert’s chief counsel, resisted from the start the inquiry, which began with concerns about mismanagement of a secret security office and later probed allegations of bid-rigging and kickbacks from contractors to a Defense Department employee.

Ronald Garant and a second Appropriations Committee investigator who asked not to be identified said Van Der Meid engaged in “screaming matches” with investigators and told at least one aide not to talk to them. Van Der Meid also prohibited investigators from visiting certain sites to check up on the effectiveness of the work, the investigators said.

Van Der Meid oversaw Capitol security upgrades for Hastert, R-Ill., and worked closely with the office that was charged with implementing them, the investigators said.

There's more?

Yep, more here.

Bollywood Friday - Bollywood in Springfield!

Crossposted from Bridget in the Sixth.

This is what they're REALLY up to in Springfield.

FYI, I have been granted special dispensation from the Illinois-only rule to cross-post Bollywood Fridays at Illinoize. So there.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Kids' Docs Back Away from All Kids

Just to make sure that my sick 9-year old, who missed four days of school and an entire weekend, didn’t have a bacterial infection, we were off to one of his pediatricians Monday.

He didn’t have strep throat and is now back in school, but I did pick up something of interest at the doctors’ office.

It was this notice.

Billed as an “All Kids Update,” the notice, "Effective October 1, 2006," basically says if patients have private insurance, All Kids will not be accepted for payment.

“If your child is covered by a commercial insurance carrier AND All Kids (previously Kid Care and Medicaid), Pediatric Specialists of the Northwest will no longer submit claims to All Kids.

“Any balance not covered by your commercial carrier will be your responsibility to pay.

“Please direct you questions to the Billing Department” and the phone number is given.

This was seen in the office north of Barrington, but I assume it is also in the group's Crystal Lake office.

Always more at McHenry County Blog.

Fundraising Update 10/26

Cross posted from ICPR's blog, The Race is On:

As the 2006 election season heads into its final two weeks, campaign fundraising by legislative and judicial candidates appears to be hotter than ever. Statewide Democrats enjoy significant financial advantages over their opponents, while Republican donors seem to be focusing on a small handful of contests in the House, Senate, and Appellate Court where they see heightened chances for victory.

Most of the money raised by statewide candidates has come in very large increments from donors who gave more than $10,000. Contributions of this size are banned in most other states and for federal candidates. Because Illinois law places no restrictions on giving, candidates have become reliant on a tiny number of very large donors.

Legislative races are hotter than usual, and have heated up earlier than usual. Only three House races in 2004 saw combined spending of $1 million or more. So far this year, three House races report total fundraising in excess of $1 million, and several more are poised to break that barrier in the next two weeks.

Half of the four Appellate Court races are uncontested. The race in far southern Illinois looks to be a replay of the 2004 Supreme Court race: a proxy war between personal injury plaintiffs on the one side and personal injury defendants on the other. The Fifth District race, stretching from the Metro East area to the Indiana border, already appears to have broken the record for spending in a state Appellate Court contest.

A copy of this report is (or will be) available for download from the ICPR website.

Gonna be an interesting Friday.

From the AP

The Illinois attorney general said Thursday that Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration is violating state public-information law by refusing to release the subpoenas it has received in a federal corruption probe.

Snip

Blagojevich is not required to follow Madigan's directions, as he would be if the ruling came from a judge. But Madigan's office said Blagojevich should pay attention to an opinion from the state's top legal officer.
"We would have every expectation that the office of the governor is interested in complying with the law and will comply," Smith said.
But Blagojevich spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff said Thursday evening that the administration disagrees and will "keep all matters that are related to federal investigations confidential."

Also nice how Lisa tosses this one Thursday instead of Friday so it will get some media play along with the plea on Friday.

OneMan

7 Days at Minimum Wage

I've been hearing about this on this other blog I like to frequent Chicago Carless. He's involved with a campaign through ACORN that hopes to raise the minimum wage from it's current rate which is $5.15/hour federally. I saw the first video. Today there are two videos of a woman named Jessica who's talking about raising four kids at an "unfair wage". I got the link to this video courtesy of Chicago Carless as well.

Now, I'm kind of torn on this issue. If I consider myself an economic conservative and I believe that raising a minimum wage could hurt the job market. In other words, cause employers to cut back on hiring, at the same time I understand the need to raising the minimum wage so that these individuals can get paid more.

I'm of the school however that you are not meant to stay at the minimum wage. That you must progress if you want that raise. What this means is that you have to get an education or somehow add to the work you do or find a way to get trained in doing another job. If you're merely stuck at this entry level minimum wage job or indeed any job that pays better than minimum wage, that's not good. You're pretty much stuck in a rut.

I see where the blogmaster of Chicago Carless was coming from talking about this project he's involved with. He had a tough time moving to Chicago trying to find a job in keeping with his educational credentials. But at least he was able to find something comparable to his education and experience instead of staying at the little odd jobs he had to take to make a living.

Tough call either way. What do you people think out there?

Crossposted @ It's My Mind

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

What Do These Congressional Candidates Have In Common?

Dan Hynes, Jack Ryan, Joyce Washington, Dennis Hastert, Jesse Jackson, Jr.,
Mark Kirk, Loren Beth Gash, Ray LaHood, Bobby Rush, Tim Johnson, Luis Guetierrez, John Porter, Michael Kelleher, Jerry Weller, Jay Robert Pritzker, Jim Durkin, Dick Durbin, Peter Fitzgerald and Loleta Didrickson.

All of them got money from soon-to-be admitted felon Stuart Levine.

There is a longish article at McHenry County Blog, which was posted on Wednesday, with a link to all of the federal contributions Levine made, plus LaHood’s unsuccessful effort to return the money shortly after he received it.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

And the worst sign award of '06 goes to...

Illinois Comptroller Barbie candidate, Carole Pankau!

Trickle Down Record Breaking

Cross-posted from ICPR's blog, The Race is On:

The judicial race in Madison County between appointed incumbent Don Weber and challenger David Hylla proves the adage that everything old is new again. What’s old is that the vast majority of the funds come from either personal injury plaintiffs or personal injury defendants, just like the 2004 race between Gordon Maag and Lloyd Karmeier. Indeed, at least 67% of the money raised since July 1 by David Hylla came from donors who gave to Gordon Maag, while at least 81% of the money raised by Don Weber came from donors who gave to Lloyd Karmeier. What’s new is that Weber and Hylla aren’t fighting over a Supreme Court seat. They’re running for a seat on the trial court. So far, they report a combined $533K for the General Election, which is still two weeks away.

Lest there be any doubt that the same pattern continues to play out in other judicial races, witness the Appellate Court race in far southern Illinois. 91% of the funds raised since July 1 by Republican Stephen McGlynn can be traced directly to personal injury defendants and their associations. Democrat Bruce Stewart draws at least 27% of his funds from personal injury plaintiffs; adding the unions whose members are liable to get injured and he gets 44% of his funds from the other side of the tort issue from McGlynn’s donors. The Illinois Republican Party reported paying $567,125 for TV ads on behalf of McGlynn, within a week of receiving $575,000 from the pro-tort reform Institute for Legal Reform. The Party, which now hasn’t enough money to run ads on behalf of its gubernatorial candidate, could not have paid for those McGlynn ads without the infusion from the Washington, DC, based organization. This race just set a record for fundraising in appellate court contests, and it’s personal injury plaintiffs and defendants that are driving the cash.

Personal injury cases matter a lot to tort interests, but that’s not what drives court dockets in southern Illinois, and it’s not the only issue voters need to think about when electing a judge. Circuit and Appellate Court judges are far more likely to hear cases about family law, including divorces and custody battles; criminal law; commercial litigation, including contract disputes and intellectual property; and Probate, including wills, trusts, and division of property. Judges have to be expert at a wide range of legal matters. But the money in these contests increasingly comes overwhelmingly from one area; an area that accounts for a small part of the cases filed in Illinois.

Hare releases first ad

News from the 17th CD race. Phil Hare has released his first campaign ad. A positive personal spot, seems to get the message out about who he is. Certainly an important goal as he has much less name recognition than Zinga. Clicking on the picture will take you to the higher resolution ad while the lower resolution can be found here

Fundraising Update

Cross posted from ICPR's blog, The Race is On:

Pres came in last night (or this morning) for just about all candidates, giving us the first full look at fundraising for the General.

Hot races:

In the senate the top races seem to be the 52nd (Myers/Frerichs), where the candidates are evenly balanced financially; the 49th (Demuzio/Richey), where they’re not; the 22nd (Roth/Noland), the 33rd (Axley/Bond), and 46th (Russell/Koehler). In the House, it’s the 107th (Granberg/Cavaletto), the 92nd (Schock/Spears), 91st (Smith/Dagit), 71st (Boland/Haring), 101st (Flider/Cain), and 75th (Gordon/Briscoe). Not counting the 112th, where Hoffman has a ton and Kugler does not.

Not races:

11 of the 39 Senate seats are uncontested, meaning that one out of six voters won’t really have a choice for the state Senate. In the House, 56 of 118 contests are uncontested, meaning that almost half of all voters won’t have any choice there. And it’s worse in judicial races, where fully half of the Appellate Court seats and 36 of 57 Circuit Court seats give voters no choice on the ballot. Some seats are won with money; others, by lack of opposition.

Killer Donor

Killerspin has emerged as a reliable Democratic donor. In the last two years, not only have they sponsored championship table tennis teams (ping-pong to novices) around the globe, but they’ve given $58K to candidates, all of them Democrats, including $27K to Todd Stroger, $15K to Rod Blagojevich, $10K to Alexi Giannoulias, and $2.5K to David Miller.

Check back to ICPR's website in the coming days for updates on the hot races, top donors, and more.

Ever Noticed that Every Paper that Endorsed McSweeney in the Primary Is Now Endorsing Bean?

And, to me, none of this is a surprise.

It was obvious that any pro-life candidate would not receive the endorsement of the Northwest Herald.

Ditto the Daily Herald.

Ditto for the Chicago Tribune.

The Pioneer Press congressional endorsements will not come out until Thursday. Anyone want to bet that Melissa Bean will be endorsed? (I made that prediction on August 20th.)

I’d also be willing to bet that the Chicago Sun-Times will endorse Bean.

All of these newspapers are owned by out-of-district interests. All have editorial boards controlled by liberals.

Repeat after me:

Liberal woman good.

Conservative man bad.

It is my experience that when a female runs against a male in the northwest suburbs, that female has about a 5-percentage point advantage. I can trace this back to 1966.

So, I would assume that male David McSweeney has a 5 percentage point disadvantage from the git-go.

If these papers really wanted Melissa Bean to get re-elected, and they know what I know about gender gaps in this part of Illinois, might they have wanted McSweeney to win the primary to make it easier for Bean to win the general election?

Another reason for not trusting the Left Stream media.

Or am I being too cynical?

For more cynicism, check out McHenry County Blog. You can even find out which Republican House members Illinois Planned Parenthood endorsed.

Monday, October 23, 2006

"The Plan" - Same old rhetoric, same old Rahm

With the 2006 midterm campaign in it’s final stretch, much of the news and commentary is focusing – to an even greater extent than before – almost exclusively on the horse race. I thought I’d try and buck the trend, so on a recent business trip I decided to read The Plan, Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Reed’s new book that aims to be a sort of Democratic answer to the Contract with America and Winning the Future, by Newt Gingrich.

I actually found some of the ideas and proposals interesting and worth exploring further. I will be posting rebuttals to their agenda on my own site throughout the course of the next few weeks, in an attempt to give people a people a place to debate policy as we head towards November 7th. Here, I will simply share with you here my critique of the political credibility of their argument, which goes beyond just the predictable spin (i.e., talking about how Republicans “cynically exploited the post-9/11 concern about security,” while Democrats “responded to legitimate fears” about the economy). Unlike Gingrich in Winning the Future, Emanuel and Reed promote their proposals with uncompromisingly partisan rhetoric that reduces the book’s appeal among voters not already pre-disposed to accept their party’s major talking points.

Emanuel and Reed are both loyal Democrats, and I certainly didn’t expect them to hide that fact or attempt anything resembling absolute objectivity. I don’t decry partisanship – unless it is being practiced by those who do. And so while Emanuel and Reed bemoan the preeminence of “hack” government in Republican controlled Washington – where winning political points is more important than finding real solutions – I find it hypocritical of them to practice it so much themselves. In the course of a 185 page book, they criticize President Bush by name more than 95 times. In contrast, prospective House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – who would theoretically play a critical role in helping turn “The Plan” into a actionable legislative agenda – is mentioned only once, and not even in reference to her Leadership duties. And without irony, they assert that “the rules of the road weren’t designed to withstand one-party rule” while giving no indication of which branch or chamber they would voluntarily cede to the Republicans were Democrats ever to be as electorally successful as the GOP in recent years.

An example of their disingenuous commitment to placing policy over politics can be found in the chapter on healthcare, in which they write about “reaching across the aisle” to find answers. But while they make sure to praise Rod Blagojevich for proposing AllKids in Illinois, they simply refer to “Massachusetts’s” innovative mandate on the purchase of healthcare coverage by those who can afford it, without bothering to mention that it was Governor (and potential Republican Presidential candidate) Mitt Romney who introduced it. And in regards to small business healthcare affordability, they write at length about the Durbin-Blanche proposal that was floated last May, but fail to even acknowledge that House Republicans passed, and the Senate Democrats blocked, (as they have almost every session this decade) a small business healthcare bill that was endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (over 95% of whose membership is small businesses) and almost every professional and business association that has a legislative advocacy program.

One of the most outrageous points in the book, however, comes in the chapter on security. Emanuel and Reed state that “the Administration jeopardized the success of our mission in Afghanistan by shifting troops to Iraq because it didn’t have enough to go all out in both places. Osama bin Laden got away at Tora Bora in part because we didn’t have the personnel to pursue him.” Now, the Tora Bora incident is one of the few criticisms leveled by John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential election with which I actually agreed. But to imply that it had anything to do with deployments to Iraq, which didn’t start until over a year later, is a shameful distortion of the truth.

Emanuel and Reed maintain that “most Americans apply the same yardstick: they vote for what works.” I was questioned whether or not they truly believe that, since right afterwards they say that “there aren’t enough hacks, even in Washington, to sell policies that don’t work – although that never stopped Bush from trying.” And, as it turns out, winning. But those two statements aren’t as contradictory as they might seem when you consider that Bush’s opponents, for the past 3 election cycles, haven’t been asking the American people to vote for what the believe will work, they’ve simply been asking them to vote against what supposedly doesn’t. To their credit, Emanuel and Reed tried to change that. But their unfortunate reliance on Bush-bashing, instead of presenting The Plan on its own merits, makes the whole effort seem small and insincere.

American Thinker puts Obama mania in perspective

After ten days of drippy valentines appearing in the media for Democrat "St. Barack" Obama of Hyde Park, the junior senator from Illinois is brought down to size by Richard Baehr of the American Thinker.

Obama, in his defense, did get his first bill enacted into law last month. Last week Barack appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, and also received a 2008 endorsement from Oprah Winfrey if he decides to run for president in 2008.

It's a pity to excerpt his article, the whole thing is of course is worth reading. And re-reading.

Newsweek, not to be outdone, graces its cover with a picture of Democratic Congressman Harold Ford, Jr. now running for the open senate seat being vacated by Bill Frist in Tennessee. Newsweek tells us these Democrats (Ford, as an example) are "not your daddy’s Democrats."

Well, then, what of Republican Michael Steele involved in a close race for the open senate seat in Maryland? Or Lynn Swann, running as a Republican for Governor of Pennsylvania? Or Ken Blackwell, running as a Republican candidate for Governor in Ohio? One might say, if one had any interest in these candidates (or their party), that with three black candidates running statewide, this was not your "daddy’s Republicans" either.

It is far more likely you will see a national news story about the Democratic candidate for Governor in Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, also an African American, than about Blackwell or Swann this year.

Why are the Democratic African American candidates of so much greater interest to the national media than the Republican African American candidates running state wide this year? Silly question, of course.

It's hearsay, but I've heard rumblings that as a state senator, Obama didn't have a long list of legislative accomplishments either. Of course, he can't use the excuse that he was a member of the minority party while serving in Springfield, one that Obama defenders use now that he's a US senator.

To comment on this and other posts, or check out my new Breitbart newsfeed, visit Marathon Pundit.

A little help: Hastert + Eagle = ???

While visiting downtown Wheaton over the weekend, I saw this piece of art(?) at the La Spiaza cafe:

I was so stricken by Stendhal syndrome that I have been unable to craft an appropriate caption -- so I am soliciting the assistance of you, the Illinoize readers.

Captions please?

Remember Illinois Veterans with Leo High School - November 3rd

The Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs and Leo High School invites every one to the 7th Annual Leo High School Veterans Observance Ceremony at the Leo War Memorial in the Leo High School Courtyard on 79th Street at 11AM on Friday November 3rd.Leo High School has held this event on the Friday before Veterans Day each year at the Leo WarMemorial dedicated in 1965 by the Leo High School Alumni. The two hundred names of Leo Men killed in the service of their country has been expanded to include all public servicemen ( Police, Fire, Postal, Government, and Charitable). Chicago Police Office, Marine Veteran, and Leo Alumnus Eric Lee's Family was so honored when Eric Lee was killed in the line of duty.Assistant Director for Illinois Veterans Affairs, Rochelle Crump has been instumental in making this annual event a great success. The Windy City Veterans, Leo Alumni Association, The Montford Point Marine Association, The Burbank Marine Color Guard and students of Leo High School welcome the public and honor all who serve their country and their communities. Call Mr. Pat Hickey at ( 773) 224-9600 for more information.Leo High School7901 S. Sangamon StreetChicago, IL 60620

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Closer?

The already thunderous talk is only going to grow as this story gets out there.

According to the Associated Press, "Sen. Barack Obama acknowledged Sunday he was considering a run for president in 2008, backing off previous statements that he would not do so."

The Illinois Democrat said he could no longer stand by the statements he made after his 2004 election and earlier this year that he would serve a full six-year term in Congress. He said he would not make a decision until after the Nov. 7 elections...

"I'm not sure anyone is ready to be president before they're president," Obama said. "I trust the judgment of the American people..."We have a long and vigorous process.

Should I decide to run, if I ever decide to, I'll be confident that I'll be run through the paces pretty well," Obama said.

The pundits and the public are sure to dissect the prospect of his candidacy over the weeks and months to come. Many will say that he doesn't have the 'experience' to be President.

A number of people have said that they would rather see him run for Governor in 2010 and then move onward.

But Barack is a clear example of what can result from the right candidate being in the right place at the right time. The same man who got beaten handily by Congressman Bobby Rush has gone on to international superstardom while proving to the public that he had the goods all along.

I believe that he has the intellect, character and visceral traits necessary to re-engage and unify a disillusioned country...and that may be just what the American public is yearning for.

To read, or post, comments, visit Open House

Power Surge (Updated)

Cross posted from ICPR’s blog, The Race is On :

As of 8 am this morning, electric companies fighting legislation to freeze rates have given at least $201K to legislators’ PACs since July 1, on top of the $1.3 million they gave between January 1, 2005 and June 30, 2006. These figures may increase as additional legislators, including the Four Tops, file their Pre-Election reports between now and tomorrow night. And, electric company giving will likely increase further through Election Day.

Senate President Emil Jones and Senate Republican Leader Frank Watson are the top two recipients, at $41,200 and $23,000 respectively. This is consistent with the earlier identified pattern of giving heavily to the upper chamber, which is typically done with an eye to killing legislation.

Two-thirds of the giving to President Jones since July 1 came in the last three weeks, after House Speaker Michael Madigan called for a special session to consider a rate freeze. Likewise, 60% of giving to Leader Watson came after the Special Session call. House Republican Leader Tom Cross got 44 % of his $17,200 after the call; significantly, Speaker Madigan’s PAC received at least $20,000 before the call, but not a dime since. The Democratic Party of Illinois, which he chairs, currently shows no electric receipts since July 1.

Top industry donors to legislators include Exelon and subsidiaries at $98K, Ameren at $54K, Dynegy at $20K, and Midwest Generation at $14K. While some of the funds come from employees, much of this giving would be illegal in other states and at the federal level, where direct corporate contributions are banned.

Other recent recipients of electric company giving include trade associations. The Illinois Chamber of Commerce reported receiving $20,000, while the Illinois Merchants PAC, the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, and the Illinois Manufacturers each report $10,000. As with giving to Senate Leaders, this non-candidate giving is consistent with an effort to mute calls for modifying the 22% - 55% rate hikes due in January.

Check back to ICPR’s website later this week for fundraising updates in the hot statewide, legislative, judicial, and Cook County races.

Scheurer Attacks MoveOn for Bean Support

After you take a look at this, you might be interested in how the Chicago Tribune got snookered today, on McHenry County Blog.

Here's a press release received from Moderate Party candidate Bill Scheurer. To put this in context, Scheurer opposes the war in Iraq.

MoveOn Supports War Candidate

Chicago--It is now clear. MoveOn is a shill for the Democratic Party that puts party over principle, and will support any Democratic incumbent in a tight race -- even a politician who votes with the Bush administration against all of MoveOn’s purported core beliefs.

People on the MoveOn mailing list who live in the Illinois 8th Congressional District recently got emails asking them to work for the incumbent Democrat Melissa Bean.

The email said: “One of the Democratic House campaigns near you urgently needs volunteers to help reach voters. You can help with just a few hours this weekend.” It then went on to give official Bean campaign contact information for all three counties in the district.

In a continuing bait-and-switch game, MoveOn is shamelessly working its vast mailing list for “Operation Democracy” which they falsely advertise as “A Grassroots Campaign to Fight the Right and Elect Progressives.”

Exactly who are these “progressives” they want to elect?

It appears that these may be any Democratic candidates “in 30 highly competitive House districts.” We do not know who all of these are for sure, because the MoveOn hierarchy is so secretive.

But, it is now a proven fact that these “progressive” candidates include the IL-8th District Democratic incumbent Melissa Bean, who in fact is running in a highly competitive race with Republican challenger David McSweeney and independent antiwar candidate Bill Scheurer.

Issues on the MoveOn agenda for motivating progressive voters include opposition to the war in Iraq and Bush’s “reverse Robin Hood” budget.

Bean is one of several Democrats who have voted with the rubberstamp Congress for these, and a long list of other, Bush policies --

CAFTA,
the Patriot Act,
the bankruptcy bill,
estate tax repeal,
tax cuts for the wealthy,
the Sensenbrenner bill,
the energy bill,
the flag-burning amendment,
the Terry Schiavo intervention,
warrantless surveillance,
secret military tribunals,
and more.

Not exactly what you might expect from a liberal MoveOn candidate.

As for being a progressive, Bean has an “F” grade (a perfect 0% score) on the Citizens for Tax Justice report card, and an “F” grade (a dismal 13% score) on the Drum Major Institute report card. On the war, she has an “F” grade (28% score) with The PeaceMajority Report.

In fact, Scheurer is the true progressive in the IL-8th District race. A staunch opponent of the Iraq war, he also is a strong supporter of working families and universal healthcare. His campaign has received financial support from some of the biggest and most politically active unions in the land (SEIU, Teamsters, IAMAW, Steelworkers, UNITE).

In 2004, MoveOn called a similar campaign “Leave No Voter Behind.” Perhaps they should rename this one “Leave No Democrat Behind” no matter how bad.

Such deceitful, behind-the scenes manipulation reminds us of the famous Edwin R. Murrow challenge to Chairman McCarthy: “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Tribune Notices South Dakota Aboriton Vote

I figure there must be a chance of passage of the November 7th referendum that abortion proponents forced onto the ballot in South Dakota this year.

Saturday’s Chicago Tribune features the campaign in favor of killing the challenge to Roe v. Wade, of course. The lead is about the “spunk” it takes for a college student to sit on a college campus commons in the most pro-abortion area of the state—Sioux Falls.

Courage to campaign against abortion on a college campus?

Takes about as much courage as it does to deface a sign.

Want to see why the proponents of abortion are even a little bit afraid that they might lose the vote to overturn a law that could be used to challenge the made-out-of-whole-cloth U.S. Supreme Court decision?

Eagle Forum posts a television ad you can view. It features, guess what, a 4-demensional sonogram. My computer isn’t new enough to play it, but yours might be. (I found I could see it here.)

There is, of course, a pitch to help put the ad on TV:

"Help put it on the air in South Dakota--EVERY dollar you give will go to airtime for putting this message on television. And because the South Dakota media market is so inexpensive, a $150 donation can put this on 'Good Morning America!'"

Illinois Chairman of Eagle Forum, Penny Pullen, is even holding a fund raising party the night of October 29—a week from Sunday.

If you would like to see the DVD showing the real life stories of women who have undergone hard case pregnancies and have handled them in various ways, email her at ProLifePenny @Yahoo.com for details.

Illinois Planned Parenthood has made two direct mail pitches to its mailing list this fall.

Penny and I traveled to South Dakota the third week of August, where she spoke to a coalition of referendum supporters.

Opportion opponents, who put the question on the ballot, are not wiling to trust the people, however. Planned Parenthood says it will “sue to block it on grounds that it is unconstitutional,” according to the Tribune article.

Two bites of this apple—in the South Dakota legislature and at the ballot box—apparently are not enough.

No matter.

The proponents are well prepared for a court challenge. That’s what they expected before the petition drive to put the question on the ballot.

In a typically Left Stream “balanced” article on abortion, the Tribune manages to avoid any mention pro-life views on its front page, while mentioning the names of three opponents.

15 paragraphs into the story, it does manage to quote Roger Hunt, the law’s sponsor.

The article gives more space to a pro-abortion Republican State Senator who was defeated in his own party’s primary by, guess what, (shutter) “a(n unnamed) conservative Christian.”

The only poll cited is from July showing a blow-out victory for abortion opponents.

Guess those who oppose abortion didn’t want to tell the Tribuen reporter what their more recent polls say.

The article does point out that no businesses in Sioux Falls have pro-abortion “Vote No” signs in their windows.
= = = = =
The top head shot is of former Illinois State Rep. Penny Pullen. The bottom one is for South Dakota State Rep. Roger Hunt.
= = = = =
McHenry County Blog is up and alive again this weekend. What Melissa Bean's volunteers are doing today, plus the series that started Wednesday on the alleged illegalities in the Huntley School District continue today with what the outside auditor did/did not do. The Feds have been notified, although only one paper has reported it.

Cicero and Cops

I wonder why these stories don't generate outrage in the blogsphere. (Two hits on a google blog search on Cicero Cops Beat vs this on Weller Page).

It just goes unoticed. Maybe it's because most bloggers too geeky to feel at risk for getting caught in a circumstance like Mr Wilson's below.

In one incident in 2003, DeKiel is alleged to have broken a victim's nose after a traffic stop, and he and DiSantis beat the man at the police station, with DiSantis striking him with a handgun, the indictment says.

Peslak then allegedly planted cocaine on the man, the federal indictment states, and the man was falsely charged with possession of a controlled substance.

At the end of the incident the officers allegedly ordered the victim, Floyd Wilson, "to use the shirt [the victim] was wearing to clean up his own blood that had run onto the floor as a result of the injuries inflicted by defendants," the indictment says.

xp at Bill Baar's West Side

Friday, October 20, 2006

Beano Bean Attack

Below is a taste of what you might see if Bill Scheurer's anti-war supporters were willing to write checks.

Click to enlarge any of the three impages.

8th congressional district "Moderate Party" candidate Bill Scheurer has folks with good imaginations.

First he rolled out McBeaney, a hybrid elephant-donkey he calls a "donkephant." I can't find it anywhere but McHenry County Blog. (A life size version appeared last Saturday, but I haven't gottne a picture yet.)

It does seem to me that good public relations gimmicks deserve some credit, however, and that's why I am posting this here, as well as on McHenry County Blog.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Rich Whitney: 11.3%

He's into double digits now per Zogby: Blagojevich 47%, JBT 33.2%, and Whitney 11.3%.

A lot of people are going to vote for Whitney without a clue about what he or the Greens stand for, and it seems their best strategy is to keep it that way. Attack the two parties and quit getting so specific in places like here and here.

Rockford School Taxers Top $100,000

Following in the footsteps of more-than-amply financed Carpentersville School District 300 tax hikers are the Rockford School District tax hikers.

For years Rockford schools were under the control of the Federal courts.

It didn’t seem to make much difference, except in the amount of money extracted from local taxpayers.

This year’s referendum is to keep a temporarily approved 58-cent tax rate on the books. Loss of the referendum would force paring $14 million from its budget.

Or would it?

McHenry County State Rep. Mike Tryon (R-Crystal Lake) says the wrong question is on the ballot.

He told the Rockford Register-Star in late September,

They have the wrong question on the ballot if they wanted their rate to be the same for five years in the future because that is not going to happen.

School board lawyers Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP must be the folks who didn’t figure out how to avoid the problems that Huntley went through with a similar referendum, which attracted Tyron’s attention.

To make matters worse, Hinshaw & Culbertson also represents Huntley School District 158, where the problem surfaced.

To make matters still worse, District 158 hired the same law firm to lobby for the passage of Tryon’s bill.

And that law firm screwed royally in Rockford by not correctly advising its other client about how to word this fall’s referendum.

The law firm contributed $2,500 to the campaign. I wonder if that is enough to make up for the mistake. Maybe the firm should just refund its legal fees and suggest other counsel.

And, I wonder how many other school vendors are on the list.

Rockford’s establishment clearly thinks defeat of the referendum would harm its morphing into a Chicago suburb.

So far, I’ve found $101,000 available for the “Kids Win” campaign, which will include TV, radio and newspaper ads, yard signs and billboards, plus literature for door-to-door distribution. The goal is $150,000, which is about what District 300 spent. (District 300 had $41,000 left over.)

At least this school tax hiking political action committee is reporting its contributions. One this past spring in Winnebago County did not.

“Vote for this referendum and your taxes will stay the same,” has to be the message. (Don’t laugh. McHenry County College successfully used that pitch to raise its tax rate when a bond was paid off.)

I can understand how one can spend over a hundred grand in a television district. District 300, of course, had no over-the-airwaves TV advertising.

The biggest contribution--$30,000--is from the Rockford Area Association of Realtors.

The teachers union kicked in $5,000. The same came from the Northern Illinois Construction Industry Advancement Program and Cedric Blazer, President/CEO of Zenith Cutter.

The establishment’s favorite meeting place, Cliffbreakers River Suites Hotel Inc., contributed $5,000, too, as did a retired man named Daniel Nicholas, whose connections perhaps someone more familiar with Rockford than I can provide. $4,100 came from the Title Underwriters Agency.

And, of course, there’s a developer in the mix. Can’t sell many homes if people think the school system is no good. County Homes of Illinois kicked in $2,500.

Compared to McHenry County developers, they got a deal.

Amcore Financial, Inc., contributed $2,000, as did retiree Edna May Taylor.

And there are bunches of smaller contributions from hospitals, the principals association, a Com Ed exec, banks, architects, community influentials, the homebuilders association ($490, hoping not to be identified before the election?), law firms, non-certified employees, even the Boys and Girls Association.

If there is opposition to the referendum, it’s hard to find on the internet.

The Register-Star quotes school board member David Kelley, an active member of the Libertarian Party, as saying,

"If the referendum fails, we will reduce the levy by the 58 cents. We will honor the outcome of the referendum."

Larry Snow, who knows this subject as well as anyone, says if the referendum fails, the school district would have to levy less money, which would result is less state aid to education.

= = = = =
I had to run the picture to the right of Jay Kadakia, one of the leaders of the Sun City anti-tax group, pointing out to State Senator Pam Althoff the importance of getting a legislative fix to the Huntely school tax rate hike referendum debacle.

This is the kind of problem Rockford politicians could face, if things work out as they did in Huntley.

State Rep. Mike Tryon appears in the top photo. The billboard is from the Rockford Register-Star's web site. The head shot at the bottom is of Rockford School Board member Dave Kelley.

Always more on McHenry County Blog. From two days ago through Sunday featuring news on why the Chicago Crime Commission turned over investigative information on the Huntley School District to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Trial Lawyers Inc. Illinois

From the report:

"Trial Lawyers, Inc.: Illinois is the Manhattan Institute’s fourth full-length report examining the workings of the litigation industry and the second such report focusing exclusively on a single state, following Trial Lawyers, Inc.: California, published in April 2005.[1] Illinois is a logical subject for our second state study: the fifth-most populous state, Illinois is home to a plaintiffs’ bar whose aggressive tactics have had a far-reaching national—and even international—impact."

Go read it here.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

There are more options for Governor

From the rough draft of a media release that I thought I would share since the debate is tomorrow. If you are in the area or can get there and want to learn more about your options for Governor, please feel free to attend.

Free and Equal Election Coalition Sponsors Real Gubernatorial Debate

On Thursday, October 19th at 6:30 PM the Free and Equal Election Coalition (FREE) is proud to sponsor the only Gubernatorial debate in Illinois this year where all the candidates have been invited.

The debate will take place at the Fountains Conference Center at Four Points Sheraton, 319 Fountains Parkway in Fairview Heights. Doors open at 6:00 PM and the general public and the media are encouraged to attend. The debate is expected to last one hour.

The candidates confirmed to participate are Rich Whitney from the Green Party, and write-in candidates Randall Stufflebeam and Mark McCoy.

Also invited were Republican Judy Baar Topinka, Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich, and write-in candidates Marvin Koch, Jr., Angel Rivera, Timothy Ross Nieukirk, and Luis Soto.

Supporters of all candidates are encouraged to distribute campaign materials at the event, even though they may not have been able to attend due to short notice.

Free hopes to set the tone for this and future elections by being true to the principles of democracy by not discriminating against any candidate. Write-in candidates have also been invited to this debate to give them a voice that is too often silenced by the anti-democratic ballot access laws in Illinois. Everyone should have the same opportunity to be on the ballot and some of the write-in candidates very well might have been on the ballot if they didn't face such severe ballot access requirements.

More than half of Illinois voters say that they would like more choices on the ballot according to a recent poll published in the Chicago Tribune. Those voters deserve to hear more about all of their options for the election on November 7th, and that is why FREE has decided to sponsor this debate.

###

And in somewhat related news, Lisa Madigan has decided to ask for a re-hearing of the recent Lee v. Keith ruling that declared Illinois Election Laws unconstitutional for independent GA candidates even though the court did so on a 3-0 vote. Lisa Madigan wants the full 7th Circuit Court of Appeals to re-hear the case.

Aren't there corrupt politicians that need to be tracked down in Illinois where these resources could be better used than trying to defend some of the worst ballot access laws in the world? Is it really wise to waste the 7th Circuit's time and resources by even asking them to re-hear this. My guess is that they will refuse to re-hear the case, and if so, Lisa Madigan needs to apologize to the taxpayers of Illinois for wasting their money on an effort to protect crooked incumbents and prolong the use of some of the worst ballot access requirements in the world. What is SHE thinking? Stu Umholtz and David Black are running against Lisa Madigan, btw.

Capparelli Cashes In Big

When I was working for Illinois Leader, I tried to keep up with what retired legislators did with any surplus money.

I only found one who gave sizable amounts to charity. He was former State Senator John Maitland, a farmer from McLean County.

Looking at the newly filed campaign disclosure forms, I just discovered what may be the biggest transfer of money from campaign fund to a retired legislator:

$418,582.89

The transfer occurred June 14, 2006.

As I read the D-2, there is another $349,000 left in the fund.

Citizens for Capparelli gave the $418,600 to Ralph Capparelli, a Democrat who lost his 2004 race for the Illinois House to fellow incumbent Rep. Michael McAuliffe. McAuliffe is the only Republican state representative from Chicago. During the three -ember district days, his Mike’s father Roger and Capparelli were in the same district and close friends.

It is list the expenditure thusly,

services pursuant to 10ILCS5/9-8.10(11)

That means the money was in the campaign fund on the day that the Illinois General Assembly forbade candidates to drain their funds for personal purposes.

$4,261 went to IRS from the campaign fund, while the Illinois Revenue Department got $983.

Undoubtedly, a hefty chuck on money was paid in personal income taxes.

“It does look to be biggest so far,” David Morrison, Deputy Director of the Campaign for Political Reform.

Ralph was one of the first Democrats I met in Springfield in 1973. I met him in the Revenue Committee when he introduced a bill to provide some oversight over the imposition of what are called state multipliers. He worked for Harry Semrow then. Semrow was a member of the Cook County Board of (Property Tax) Appeals.

We worked out language which I think is still state law.

Capparelli was the Dean of the House when he was defeated. In other words, he had been there longer than other member.

You can also find a school district that has asked the United States Justice Department to investigate itself on McHenry County Blog.

Third Time's a Charm?

Cross posted from ICPR's blog, The Race is On:

Today's Tribune reports on a leaked report from the governor's Inspector General, this one finding that a state employee engaged in political work with taxpayer resources. This is the third time that a report of the governor's IG has been leaked to the press. News coverage of the report give the strong impression that the IG investigated this instance thoroughly and reached a reasonable determination. However, for reasons we find totally indefensible, the law requires these reports to be confidential.

Since the IG's office was created in 2004, the office has concluded over 685 investigations. The Ethics law allows the IG to announce only the number of investigations it has conducted. The public, by statute, is kept in the dark unless and until the IG sends a complaint to the Ethics Commission. To date, the Commission has received only one report, out of over 2500 allegation filed, and that one has not yet been resolved.

ICPR believes that the public has a right to know more about investigations undertaken by the Inspectors General. We shouldn't have to rely on leaks to determine whether our government is working or not. The General Assembly should amend the Ethics Act to allow for sunshine in ethics.

Update in the 17th

The lifeless race for the 17th CD has at least had a couple noteworthy events to talk about. But first I will bring everyone up to speed by quoting an editorial in my local newspaper yesterday.

Six months ago we thought the race to replace Lane Evans in Congress was going to be one of the most competitive, high profile, big spending campaigns in the country. It has turned out to be anything but, so voters will have to work a little harder to find out about the candidates.
Considering this is an open seat and the control of Congress is up for grabs, voters in the 17th District have to be wondering, "What happened?"

Republican Andrea Zinga and Democrat Phil Hare have generated about as much interest as the start of the professional hockey season. While these two candidates are trying to get the public's attention, they can't. They've hardly generated any interest even among party loyalists.

This race has been uninspiring, that's for sure. The final debate will occur between these two candidates tonight in the Quad Cities. It will be at Augustana College.

Additionally, Zinga missed the FEC filing dealine recently, which has brought more bad publicity to her campaign. There are several good articles floating around but I will once again quote The Galesburg Register Mail

"If Ms. Zinga chooses to keep voters in the dark and either can't or won't follow the campaign finance laws, how can voters reasonably expect her to do better with a congressional office budget or with voting on the U.S. national budget?" Samuels said.

Happy Warrior - Republican Ray Wardingley

There is always a crowd at Kean Gas Station at 111th & Talman in the Morgan Park neighborhood of Chicago. Thick with 19th Ward Democrats, Kean is a family owned gas station and convenience store that serves hot coffee and fresh news from The Daily Southtown: Tom the plumbing contractor, Geno the ComEd linesman, Ed the Fire Lieutenant, Shirley the Corrections Officer, and then there's Ray.

Ray Wardingley is and has been a proud Republican who cheerfully parries Terry's cracks like a rhetorical Bobby Riggs. Today's Daily Southtown features a nice report by Courtney Greve on one of the nicest people in Illinois politics. Give it a glance.

http://www.dailysouthtown.com/news/101079,1NWS5-18.article

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Card Game

The backstory is this:

A campaign official for Cook County Board president candidate Ald. Todd Stroger (8th) resigned his position Tuesday following news of his arrest last week for allegedly harassing an ex-girlfriend.

Sean Howard, who was a scheduler for Stroger and who also serves as spokesman for the Village of Dolton, quit his campaign post after a spokesman for Stroger's opponent, Cook County Commissioner Anthony Peraica (R-16th), mentioned Howard's arrest to a group of reporters Tuesday morning.

But making a bad situation much worse is this:

Robert Shaw, who with his brother is a longtime supporter of the Stroger family, said he was outraged the Peraica campaign would stoop to leaking arrest information about Howard, and claimed it was racially and politically motivated.

"This leak is from an individual who's trying to get at Todd Stroger, in my opinion," Robert Shaw said. "It can't be nothing but something anti-black."

"I've been in this business (of politics) for 54 years, and I've seen all kinds of tricks. I think this is an attempt to malign a respected black man," Shaw said.

Now Dan Proft and I may disagree on some things, but not on this on issue. In fact, I think that he summed things up pretty well.

Peraica campaign spokesman Dan Proft scoffed, saying, "Howard got arrested, and it's our fault? These guys are embarrassing.

"This has nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with us, nothing to do with race. This is a charge filed by a black woman against a black man by the Flossmoor Police Department. That is where the circle closes."

Given their past relationships, and a little knowledge of the Shaw brothers, I'm working from the presumption that Shaw's comments were made with the intention of helping the Stroger campaign.

But if his logic is that he can ramp up turnout in the African-American community by playing the race card where it doesn't appear to be at issue, that strategy seems not only disrespectful to the very community at which it is aimed, but also likely to backfire.

I think that frivolously playing the race card is an offense to the legacy of all people who fought for, and continue to fight for, civil rights. And I believe that the vast majority of intelligent people, of every color, feel the same way.

If, on the other hand, Shaw sincerely believes his comments, that's just inexplicable. Maybe I'm being naive, but I don't remotely see any indicia of race in what happened. I've seen worse done than leaking public information in countless elections involving white, black and Latino candidates. (Maybe somebody should ask the Shaws about what was done to Rep. David Miller in the last election cycle.) Noble politics? No. Racist? Not a chance.

In any event, I think that Shaw's remarks will do nothing but force Stroger to have to comment about them which, three weeks out from an election in an surprisingly tight race, cannot be what he wants to be doing.

To read, or post, comments, visit Open House

The Gang of four plus one

A comment by Muletown,

Obama, Jackson, Emmanuel, and Rush are in the process of taking over the Democrat Party in Illinois. Jackson will beat Daley the next time around. None of the four have any use for Blagojevich. This is the first public step in the dumping of Blagojevich by the gang of 4 plus Meeks that will keep the African American vote for Blago at a minimum. The Governor is dead!!! Mayor Daley is on life support and the gang of 4 are looking for the plug to the respirator!!!

OK, well, is this such a bad thing? I have no use for Blagojevich; and admit to liking Obama, Jackson, Emanuel, and Rush in the same way I like the seedy side of life in Chicago. I feel at home there. It's real. Blajojevich insults me as a phony. These guys don't. Although if Obama keeps trying to play the family values cards with me he'll cross the line.

So, is this the gang taking over the party? What happened to the Madigans?

As for Daley's plug. The Mayor will always be the example for me of not knowing when to leave on the high note. His will be a tragic story. My Father-in-Law, on the way to Michigan, says south Lake Shore Drive has never looked better. He's right, and it will be sad to see the Mayor go down because I think he's done a lot for Chicago and truly loves the place.

Harold Ford Jr. and Chicago's E2 nightclub tragedy

While I was in the Volunteer State a couple of weeks ago, I heard a radio commercial from Tennessee Republican Senate candidate Bob Corker about a $1,000 donation his opponent's campaign fund made to the Dwain Kyles Defense Fund that jogged my memory.

Rep. Harold Ford Jr. is the Democratic candidate for the senate seat being vacated by Bill Frist.

Who is Dwain Kyles? He was the owner of Chicago's E2 nightclub, where on February 17, 2003, 21 club patrons were killed in a stampede.

Kyles was subsequently charged for involuntary manslaughter. The club was greatly overcrowded that night. Kyles had rented out E2 to a local dance promoter whose security guards used pepper spray to subdue two women involved in a fight. The spraying panicked the 1,000 or so club customers, many of whom streamed toward the front door entrance of the E2--but that door had been bolted shut in a terribly misguided attempt to defuse the uproar.

Chicago fire marshals deemed that the capacity of the club 250 people, of course far more than that had packed on that busy night, the Sunday of President's Day weekend.

The tragedy of course dominated the Chicago news outlets for days. What was odd, was that several of the city's African-American leaders--all of the victims were black--were quick to defend the Kyles, who also is African American.

From the February 19, 2003 Chicago Tribune, free registration required:

In the days since the 21 patrons were killed, Jackson and his son U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) have rushed to defend Kyles and the club, as have U.S. Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) and a host of prominent Chicago ministers.

"Dwain Kyles is a childhood friend of mine. Today, he's a lawyer ... and an upstanding example of a young professional person in our community," the younger Jackson said in a prepared statement.

While calling Monday's disaster "unfortunate and tragic," he insisted "extending blame and pointing fingers is inappropriate and unnecessary before the first funeral has been held and the investigation is complete."

A year later, one of the victims, Eazay Rogers still (free reg. for the link) still didn't have a headstone.

And another year later, the campaign fund of Congressman Harold Ford donated $1,000 to the Dwain Kyles Defense Fund.

Via Free Republic, from the Chattanooga Times Free Press:

"The Rev. Samuel Billy Kyles is a pastor in Memphis, and his son in Chicago is a business owner, and there was a tragedy," the Memphis congressman said.

Rep. Ford said the elder Mr. Kyles is a well-known figure in Memphis and knew Martin Luther King Jr. Making such a contribution is "not something I ordinarily would do," Rep. Ford said. "I don’t think he did anything wrong. It was an awful thing."

Ben Mitchell, campaign manager for Republican Senate candidate Bob Corker, of Chattanooga, called the contribution "another in a series of questionable decisions by Congressman Ford."

"It’s difficult to understand how support for a criminal defendant in Chicago has anything to do with the Senate race in Tennessee, but I guess that’s a discussion he’ll probably need to have with his donors," Mr. Mitchell said.

Kyles' father was a founding member of Operation Push, Jesse Jackson's organization.

In my opinion, it's pretty bizarre that Ford's campaign wrote a check for Kyles' fund. Campaign financing laws might prohibit it, but if Eazay Rogers still doesn't have a headstone for her grave, perhaps Ford's campaign fund can buy one.

For comments on this post, please visit Marathon Pundit.

Blago Donates 1%

One of the things I admired about Governor Jim Edgar is that he tithed.

He gave 10% of his family income to church.

When I see an article about a politician’s revealing his income tax forms, I’m always curious as to what percentage he or she donates to church and charity.

The governor has finally filed his income tax forms and reports donating $2,900, according to the Chicago Tribune.

That’s out of $286,920.

So, Governor and Mrs. Rod Blagojevich donated a little over 1% of their 1995 household income to charitable and religious activities.

= = = = =
McHenry County Blog reveals today the politician who has taken the most from his campaign fund for personal use. It's over 400 grand so far.

Monday, October 16, 2006

7th Leo High School Veterans Observance - November 3rd at 11 AM

The Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs and Leo High School invites every one to the 7th Annual Leo High School Veterans Observance Ceremony at the Leo War Memorial in the Leo High School Courtyard on 79th Street at 11AM on Friday November 3rd.

Leo High School has held this event on the Friday before Veterans Day each year at the Leo WarMemorial dedicated in 1965 by the Leo High School Alumni. The two hundred names of Leo Men killed in the service of their country has been expanded to include all public servicemen ( Police, Fire, Postal, Government, and Charitable). Chicago Police Office, Marine Veteran, and Leo Alumnus Eric Lee's Family was so honored when Eric Lee was killed in the line of duty.

Assistant Director for Illinois Veterans Affairs, Rochelle Crump has been instumental in making this annual event a great success. The Windy City Veterans, Leo Alumni Association, The Montford Point Marine Association, The Burbank Marine Color Guard and students of Leo High School welcome the public and honor all who serve their country and their communities. Call Mr. Pat Hickey at ( 773) 224-9600 for more information.

Leo High School
7901 S. Sangamon Street
Chicago, IL 60620

Rasmussen poll on Gov race

It's out but I don't subscribe. They show JBT at 43% with the Gov at 49% and no idea where Whitney the Green is. This was Oct 12 with 500 LVs so maybe it's the Rezko effect.

Big swing from the Trib WGN poll.

Maybe it's time for Quinn to start talking about his plan for cleaning house as Governor to keep Democrats ahead.

Update: Rich had the Rasmussen poll covered here and there's some question if it's really post-Rezko.

Footnote: Proviso Probe has a post on Blagojevich and Danny Davis at a meeting on the West Side. (Carl also covered it here at Austin Weekly News.)

Here's a quote from Carl's post. I think he's right and it shows what's become of the left. I can't imagine a Paul Douglas, a Paul Simon, or a Leon Despres agreeing with a thought like this. But it's true and I think reflects what's become of reform in Illinois. We get tricks, lies, and Pat Quinn's silence.

He [Blagojevich] cast himself as fighting for a progressive vision. He acknowledged that politics is sometimes dirty and dishonest. He told a story about how he tricked the "Pro Life" legislators on stem cell research. Blagojevich knew the anti-abortion crowd wanted to strip funding for stem cell research from the budget. Blagojevich gave the legislature the budget without enough time for the anti-abortion legislators to find where Blagojevich put the stem cell research money. When asked about the issue, Blagojevich proudly explained, "I told them the truth. I'm not saying [if there's stem cell research money or not]."

I thought this anecdote did a good job of making the case that if you want to make progress in politics sometimes you have to play dirty.

However, Blagojevich crossed into bs territory when he said that he wanted his legacy to be to build a progressive movement that would sustain itself beyond his gubernatorial campaign.

That's the progressive movement. It's no bs.

xp Bill Baar's West Side

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Voters face unhappy choice

You know I've kind of been saying this on the blog for awhile. This article from the Tribune is just one way for me to just say, "Man I'm not the only one who feels this way."

I've followed the primary and there were some people there I liked better than others. For the last two years conservatives wanted to wrestle the IL GOP away from the "old guard" with seemingly little or no success. My discontent of Topinka stems not from the primary back in the Spring but from her brief term as IL GOP Chair. I'm still a little upset that (although it may not have been her doing she really didn't do much to settle this) they had forced the resignation of the original GOP nominee (Jack Ryan) for the US Senate seat now held by Barack Obama. As for the incumbent all you have to do is watch and read the news.

Here's some interesting information I ran across as far as the political climate of the State of Illinois...

Topinka is also struggling to take advantage of the discontent that independent voters display toward Blagojevich. The backing of independents is a requirement for Republicans in a state that has grown increasingly Democratic.
...
Blagojevich is viewed unfavorably by 56 percent of independent voters, an increase of 15 percentage points from a similar survey a month ago. While Blagojevich saw a drop in support among independents, Topinka did as well, and third-party candidate Whitney was the beneficiary.

Now the results are from a survey and here's one respondent who has an opinion of Topinka...

Poll respondent Joan MacLennan, 67, of Des Plaines, who calls herself an independent voter, said investigations of alleged corruption involving the current administration have lessened her opinion of the governor, while Topinka's shoot-from-the-hip statements in public have diminished her view of the state treasurer.

"The things she says, they just aren't very gubernatorial," MacLennan said. "And with Blagojevich, you have all these fraud investigations. I just have no idea what to do."

Well not to change the subject but I just want to point this out on another note. Topinka found her way into Glamor magazine as a local rising star. A former Republican governor of New Jersey had this to say about Topinka...

Christine Todd Whitman is quoted as saying this about Judy Baar Topinka, "She doesn't need on-the-job training; she already knows how to get things done."

If only she could get Illinois to feel the same way about her.

Crossposted @ It's My Mind

A Governor Pat Quinn

Illinois has to be the only State were people seriously argue one should vote for a candidate because they're likely to get indicted, resign, and then their Lieutenant (a reform sort of fellow) will take over.

Sadly, that seems to be the outcome we'll probably see.

So, assuming the case, what does a Governor Pat Quinn do? Lets say in the first hundred days.

Seems he'll be under crushing pressure to disassociate himself from the Blagojevich years, and that means dumping people. Something I'm not sure he can easily do.

So what does Pat Quinn do? Seems fair to speculate. Almost seems Quinn should be speaking to it.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Wal-Mart planning five supercenters in Chicago

Of course a big story from the summer was the debate over Chicago's big-box "living wage" ordinance. The bill passed Chicago's city council, only to be vetoed by Mayor Richard Daley, who viewed it, correctly in my opinion, as an anti-jobs ordinance.

The stores will be built in city wards whose alderman voted against the living wage ordinance, although one alderman, only voted not to override Daley's veto.

From Crain's Chicago Business:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is offering up an election-time goodie to Mayor Richard M. Daley and his City Council allies: five Supercenter stores that would go into wards whose aldermen helped the mayor block a proposed minimum wage for big-box retailers like Wal-Mart.

Crain’s has learned that Wal-Mart has presented the city with a list of five potential store sites in heavily African-American South Side neighborhoods. While a final decision has not yet been made, the retailer is firm enough on them that it is expected to seek formal city zoning and other approvals before the end of the year, a person close to the matter says.

That means the prospect of thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in construction work would be on the table at the same time the aldermen, and presumably Mayor Daley, will be making their case to voters in advance of the February city elections.

The construction work would be done, of course, by union contractors, something Wake Up Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart Watch won't be reporting.

The areas where those stores will be built have little in the way of a viable retail presence. So as I've reported previously, Wal-Mart moving into these communities won't be driving out scores of other merchants, as Wal-Mart opponents claim the retail giant does.

Related post: Lines of people greet first Chicago Wal-Mart

To comment on this post, please visit Marathon Pundit. You can also view picture from my Great Smoky Mountains trip.

Chicago Papers Think George Ryan’s Going to Prison Not Too Important

For the Sun-Times, corruption in Governor Rod Blagojevich’s administration took the front-page and four of five columns of page 3.

George Ryan's going to prison got one column on the left hand side of page 3:

Judge to
Ryan: Go
to prison
Jan. 4

In the Tribune, former Governor George Ryan’s going to jail on January 4th didn’t show up until page 12, what used to be the front page of the now-gone separate Saturday Metro section. There it was the main story:

Ryan loses freedom bid

Ex-governor to be jailed during appeal

The Tribune touts the UN vote on North Korea as its lead page 1 story. Other stories include the award of the Nobel Prize to the Bangladeshi man who pretty much started micro lending, a proven way to use the entrepreneurial spirit to life people out of poverty.

More important than the Ryan prison story are

· how a Naperville home where the Lemak kids were murdered by their deranged mother is now a tourist site,
· Chicago’s selling off more of its silver ware (in the form of downtown garages), and
· how corrupt Ohio Republicans are bringing a strong Republican Party down.

Maybe the Tribune is trying to diminish the impact of GOP corruption in Illinois by hiding the Ryan go to jail story.

Maybe the Tribune put the Naperville story on the front page to try to compete with the increasing New York tabloid front pages of the Sun-Times.

Maybe a Topinka endorsement is in its Sunday edition.

Maybe you will have another explanation.

Elgin’s Daily Courier-News, on the other hand, put

Prison for Ryan

as a small story on its upper right-hand front page story. It’s now as big as

Blago pal a no-show

to the left, but it at least shows the importance of the story.

What coverage did Downstate papers give the Ryan story?

= = = = =
Also appearing today on McHenry County Blog are my 1971 experiences with Republican mover and shaker Bill Cellini. Cellini, according to the State Journal-Register, was in on one of the Teachers Retirement System deals for which Governor Rod Blagojevich buddy Tony Rezko was indicted this week.

Trib WGN poll on Gov Race

I can't find the poll but here's what the Trib says about it today online,

The survey showed Blagojevich with the support of 43 percent of the voters polled, while Topinka had 29 percent and Green Party candidate Rich Whitney had 9 percent. Another 17 percent were undecided, and 2 percent offered choices for governor not among the names appearing on the Nov. 7 ballot.

The poll, conducted Oct. 8 to Wednesday among 600 likely voters, has an error margin of 4 percentage points.

Blagojevich's 14 percentage point advantage over Topinka represents an incremental increase from the 12 percentage point lead he held in a Tribune poll conducted almost a month ago.

It was taken pre Rezko. Trib says this about JBT.

Nearly half of all voters surveyed have an unfavorable view of the Republican nominee--reflecting Blagojevich's TV attack ads, questions of whether she has the gravitas to be governor, and a failure to unify the disparate factions of the state GOP after a fractious March primary.

In the last month, the number of Illinois voters who have an unfavorable opinion of Topinka jumped to 49 percent from 40 percent.

She sure could do more with gravitas and unifying.

I voted Gore-Lieberman because I feared Bush's self-deprecating humor; that it was completely misunderstood in translation by North Korea or Radical Islam. Same thing goes for JBT's style in a state so racked by corruption and scandals as Illinois.

And there are ways to unify with social conservatives; even if you have moderate views on social issues. Justice Scalia gave the principle when he said a Judge is no better equipped to render moral judgements than any other citizen. Aborting a fetus and defining what's a marriage belong on the ballot; not in courts. Hammer away with that principle and I think JBT could unify a bit.

She also should read The Party of Sam's Club: Isn't it time the Republicans did something for their voters? . The authors concluded,

So today's Republican party should be in favor of helping recent immigrants get ahead and slowing the flow of illegal labor--in favor of providing a helping hand to the hard working poor and cutting subsidies to the idle and shiftless--in favor of a tax policy that favors the working class and the productive rich. Above all, it should be in favor of limited government, and in favor of using government's considerable power to shore up the institution that makes a limited government possible--the beleaguered but resilient American family.[Baar's emphasis]

Family values can be a Radical thing. JBT could use them to effect. If it's not all too late.

xp at Bill Baar's West Side

Friday, October 13, 2006

Way to go, Dick Tracy

Once again Chicago Alderman Burt Natarus has opened his mouth on the City Council floor, and once again something totally insane popped out. From this week's Chicago Reader:

Last week’s City Council meeting was pretty sedate, but there were still some signs of election anxiety. At one point finance committee chair Ed Burke, sponsor of an ordinance that would require the city to fund live podcasts of council meetings, was interrupted by 42nd Ward alderman Burton Natarus. “It’s the 75th anniversary of Dick Tracy!” Natarus shouted without warning. He said he was introducing a resolution commemorating the famous comic-strip detective. “I have a lot of Dick Tracy magazines,” he said proudly.

“Comic books,” Mayor Daley corrected him.

If Alderman Burt Natarus wasn't responsible for overseeing over a $5 BILLION taxpayer-funded budget, if Chicago's schools weren't in such an awful state, if their weren't nearly 36,000 violent crimes committed against Chicago residents last year, if City government wasn't rife with corruption, and if people weren't being forced out of their homes by skyrocketing property taxes, Burt Natarus's infantile attention span would be comical. But it's not.

Way to keep your eye on the ball, Alderman.

A Big Brother City

For all the hoopla over NSA spying on suspected terrorists, it's curious this story hasn't generated any talk.

Security and terrorism won't be an issue if Chicago wins the right to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games because, by that time, there'll be a surveillance camera on every corner, Mayor Daley said Wednesday. "By the time 2016 [rolls around], we'll have more cameras than Washington, D.C. ...

Our technology is more advanced than any other city in the world -- even compared to London -- dealing with our cameras and the sophistication of cameras and retro-fitting all the cameras downtown in new buildings, doing the CTA cameras," Daley said.

"By 2016, I'll make you a bet. We'll have [cameras on] almost every block."

If I lived in the city, I'd be for it.

But I wonder if these tapes can be subpoenaed, for example; in civil court cases. I think that's the case now with our tollway easy pass records.

I guess the rules — and ethics — are different in Pekin

A month or so ago, I emailed Peoria City Councilman Bill Spears with a question having to do with the race for the 92nd District in the Illinois House of representatives. He sent me a reply, saying that he cannot use city email for anything having to do with his campaign.

And now, we have Pekin City Councilman Daryl Dagit, who used his city email to send invitations to the opening of 91st District campaign headquarters to all city of Pekin employees. I have no idea what advice if any Peoria City Attorney Randy Ray gave Councilman Spears. I'm guessing if there was any advice it would have been to err on the side of caution and not use any city resources on the statehouse campaign. In general, I find most members of the council go to extraordinary lengths to avoid conflicts.

But the ethical sensibilities must be different over in the Marigold City. The city attorney over there says that it's perfectly legal. His exact words were "much ado about very, very little." Still, the advice given was to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Not a bad idea since their last mayor got his sorry self convinced of using city resources for his own entertainment.

While Dagit no doubt used taxpayer-financed resources to promote his campaign, I doubt the wear and tear on the city's already in place servers amounted to anything measurable in terms of cost. Using email these days is so common, it's sorta like using the phone.

The ethical concern I have is this: Here is a sitting city council member using official city-owned communications systems telling city employees of a political event, which they are "invited" to attend. No matter how that's worded, some folks are going to interpret that as a command appearance. And were the people who attended asked to write a campaign check?

Councilman Spears, a Democrat is running against incumbent Aaron Schock, a Republican. Dagit, a Republican, is challenging incumbent Mike Smith.

Full disclosure: I am a friend of Spears and am supporting his campaign.

Cross posted to Peoria Pundit.

Technorati Tags: Bill Spears, Daryl Dagit, Aaron Schock, Mike Smith, ethics, campaign rules

Thursday, October 12, 2006

An Update on "What If Denny Is Telling the Truth?"

With no hint in the most recent New York Times story that the Foley page scandal is in any way related to homosexuality, I thought it was time to give my McHenry County Blog article a new twist.

Pat Buchanan wrote in a recent column:

On Sunday, The New York Times reported that Fordham is gay. On Saturday, The Post reported that the House clerk who oversaw the page program and was sent by the speaker's office to admonish Foley in 2005 was also gay. Fordham, Foley and the clerk are now gone. What, then, are the elements of this multiplex scandal?

So, this was important information last weekend, but not the day Fordham testifies.

Doesn't that pretty much prove the country's two leading newspapers are trying to downplay the homosexual angle?

Here's McHenry County Blog's original story "What If Denny Is Telling the Truth?"

A jab from the Left: New Republic skewers DePaul

For the most part, criticism of Chicago's DePaul University in regards to the Thomas Klocek affair and the numerous Norman Finkelstein atrocities have come from conservative minded publications such as FrontPage Magazine, National Review, and the American Thinker. An Alan Dershowitz article about Finkelstein appeared in on the Huffington Post, but pretty much, the well-deserved assault on DePaul has come from the Right.

But today I came across an article from New Republic Online. New Republic is well to the left of people like John Kerry and Al Gore.

From a piece by Marty Peretz, "The Spine:"

The first case involves Thomas Klocek, who for 14 years was a DePaul "adjunct instructor" at the School for New Learning (as opposed, I gather, from the "old learning"), one of those academic indentured servants who now make up perhaps 50 percent of faculty in higher education, people usually without offices, benefits, job safety, and status. He was suspended from his job and then dismissed without so much as a hearing for hurting the feelings of some Palestinian students, not his students and not in his class but at a campus cafeteria where members of Students for Justice in Palestine and United Muslims Moving Ahead had set up two tables with leaflets. Klocek, a pious Catholic, confronted the people at the table saying that their materials were distorted. An angry confrontation ensued, during which Klocek quoted the director of Al Arabiya TV as stating, "While not all Muslims are terrorists, it is a sad fact that almost all terrorists are Muslims." This, alas, is an indisputable fact, as clearly Pope Benedict grasps. Would the Holy Father be permitted to speak at DePaul? Yet a simple truth was grounds for Klocek's dismissal. Another statement Klocek uttered that led to his firing was that "Palestinian" is a "twentieth-century construction." It certainly isn't a nineteenth-century construction or an eighth-century one, either. This is true for the peoples of the entire Arab world, save for Egypt. And, to those who lay claim to be members of the Iraqi nation or the Lebanese nation (or, for that matter, the Palestinian nation) I, we ask: When will you behave as a nation? Your nationhood is in your hands.

The second case revolves around Norman Finkelstein who, a quarter century after getting his PhD and after having taught at Hunter and Brooklyn Colleges and New York University, is now an assistant professor of political science at DePaul. This is a stunning instance of downward mobility. Richly deserved. But no students deserve to be under the tutelage of Finkelstein. His initial appointment and now his pending designation as tenured professor have been supported on the grounds of academic freedom. This makes an at best flawed process--forgive the Catholic terminology--the equivalent of a papal bull. In fact, a papal bull would encounter more discussion and objections among faithful Catholics then Finkelstein's supporters would permit his scholarly critics. The fact is that Finkelstein is not a scholar. He is a nut case. There are many contentious issues in Holocaust history. But he is a Holocaust denier. That is like denying that slavery existed in America and that the economy of the South was based on slavery. Someone who denied this would not get a faculty appointment, and, if he did, one would think it much more than odd and the academics who made the appointment either stupid or malevolent. This would not be a process that could or should be defended on the grounds of academic freedom. An appointment certified by a department chair and a university president may still be intellectually preposterous. If you want to get more information on both the Klocek and Finkelstein cases just search for them on Google, 14,000 and 900,000 citations, respectively.

DePaul must be well aware that Google is filled with less than flattering references to itself via Google and Yahoo! But they have no one to blame but themselves.

To comment on this post, please visit Marathon Pundit.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

IFI Releases Voter Guide - Hypes Randy Stufflebeam

And the questions for those running for Illinois?

Of interest besides the questions is the fact that write-in candidate Randy Stufflebeam is included on the top line with an affiliation with the Constitutional Party.

This makes the second pro-life group I have discovered that has emphasized Stufflebeam’s candidacy. Read about the first here.

While neither Democrat Rod Blagojevich nor Green Party candidate Rich Whitney replied to the questionnaire, Republican Judy Topinka did. Except for her answers to questions 5, 7 and 8 (put in boldface type below), Sufflebeam and she seemed to have opposite answers. (To the questions on gambling and ERA, Topinka gave “qualified responses.”)

There are ten of them. One’s support or opposition was requested.

1) Taxpayer funding of live human embryonic stem cell research. (2003: HB 3589, 2005: SB 2100)

2) Adding “sexual orientation” and “gender related self-identity” to the existing Human Rights Act, thus elevating homosexual, bisexual and transgendered behavior to protected civil rights status. (2005 – SB 3186)

3) Allowing pharmacists to dispense “morning after” pill (e.g., Plan B) without obtaining a doctor’s prescription. (2003: HB 2535)

4) An Illinois constitutional marriage amendment that would define marriage as between one man and one woman and preclude recognition of “civil unions” or domestic partners (2005-HJRCA 11)

5) Legislation requiring public schools and libraries to filter/block internet access to illegal obscenity, child pornography, and material harmful to minors (2000 – HB 1812)

6) Legislation to expand gambling in Illinois (adding slot machines or casinos).

7) Requiring parental notice before a girl can obtain an abortion.

8) Reducing taxes by indexing the per-person deduction.

9) Federal Equal Rights Amendment (E.R.A.) that will require gender-based “equal rights” including protecting “abortion rights” and “same-sex marriage.” (2005 HJRCA 3)

10) Legislation to provide grants for “comprehensive sex education” which will include instructing students 9-17 about condom usage and pregnancy prevention. (2006- SB 2267)

For more, including the U.S. Attorney's press release on Tony Rezko, come to McHenry County Blog.

Family Values

For those of you keeping score at home, here's what the Illinois Family Institute, whose self-proclaimed mission is "dedicated to upholding and re-affirming marriage, family, life and liberty in Illinois. For the past fifteen years, the IFI has worked to advance public policy initiatives consistent with Judeo-Christian teachings and traditions, educating citizens so that they can better influence their local communities and the state" has had to say recently:

Regarding State Rep. John Fritchey's parental notification legislation: "a slap in the face to concerned parents everywhere."

Regarding the Hastert/Foley teenage sex scandal: Silence.

Draw your own conclusions about the sincerity of their mission.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

More retail insanity in Chicago

Just south of Alderman Joe Moore's 49th Ward is Mary Ann Smith's 48th. Moore is best known nationally for his unsucessful anti big-box retail outlet crusade. Smith got her share of attention with her proposal to essentially ban elephants within Chicago's city limits. Trust me on this one, rampaging pachyderms are not a burning issue in Chicago. Of course, Smith has circuses and Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo in mind with her PETA-inspired legislation.

There must be something in the air on Chicago's North Side that gets alderman in a tizzy about national retail chains.

From the Chicago Tribune, free registration required.

For years, the Andersonville neighborhood on Chicago's Far North Side has been defined by its quirky, hip, one-of-a-kind shops and eateries: Women and Children First bookstore. Wikstrom's Gourmet Foods. Alamo Shoes.

Now, as the once-struggling neighborhood becomes a hot destination for residents and shoppers--and large corporations take notice--some local business leaders and politicians are considering a drastic attempt to lock in the area's charm: the city's first ban on chain retailers.

According to a draft ordinance by the city Law Department, "formula businesses" such as Starbucks could be banned from designated business districts in certain historic neighborhoods.

The ordinance has not yet been introduced. But if it were to make its way through the City Council successfully, qualifying neighborhoods could decide whether to opt in to the ban.

Like Moore's Rogers Park neighborhood, I used to live in Andersonville. The area does have a few "quirky" stores, but architecturally the neighborhood is nothing special.

Here's what's going on. The current retailers there, the quirks, are afraid of competition, so in the "Chicago way," these merchants are asking for protection from their local alderman, plain and simple.

To comment on this post, or view posts on my recent trip to the Great Smoky Mountians, please visit Marathon Pundit.

Former Lake County GOP Chairman Makes Internet Hit Piece Entitled, “Republican Hypocrisy Revealed”

Someone has done a good bit of research to come up with Republicans who have done nasty deeds with kids, with pornographic charges and convictions throw in for good measure.

“Republic Hypocrisy Revealed” with “Stop Republican Pedophilia” as a subhead can be found at armchairsubversive.com. The site encourages people to copy “without permission.”

It is no surprise that former Congressman Dan Crane’s affair with a female page made the list. (In the interest of full disclosure, I was hosted by the Cranes at an Indy 500 party in 1982 when I was running for State Comptroller. I thought both husband and wife were splendid hosts.)

But, it was a surprise to find Tom Adams as one of the headliners. He is described as a Republican Mayor. He was “arrested for distributing child pornography over the internet.” Here is the link provided for Adams. (Although the version I received via email had the Chicago Tribune link for Adams, the one for the general site does not. I wonder why.) Here's the article I wrote on Adams.

If I missed anyone from Illinois, please let me know with a comment.

Since this is an attack on Republicans, no mention was made of former Norwood Park Democratic Party precinct captain and homosexual serial killer John Gacy. His acts were so horrid that it is rumored the Illinois Supreme Court refused to overturn the death penalty while he was on death row.

= = = = =
Some might be interested in my McHenry County Blog musings on "What If Denny Is Telling the Truth?"

What we know, and when we know it

Cross posted from ICPR's blog, The Race is On:

People watching A-1s today would have seen the largest transfer in Illinois history, when Citizens for Frank Watson transferred $1,000,000 to the Republican State Senate Campaign Committee. And we know that because Illinois has one of the best campaign finance disclosure websites in the nation. If you count ICPR’s website, we have two of the best campaign finance websites in the nation, but the official State Board of Elections website is a terrific resource. Visitors to the SBE website can now watch A-1s come in. A-1s are reports of contributions of over $500 received in the last 30 days before an election, filed within two days of receipt.

It’s often assumed that campaigns plan for the A-1 period by pulling in big checks earlier, so as to gain that last two weeks of anonymity, but not every campaign follows this bit of thinking. Donors have given amounts larger than Watson's transfer to recipients in direct giving before, especially self-funders, and PACs have given larger cumulative amounts before as a series of smaller transfers from one PAC to another, but today’s transfer from Watson to the RSSCC is the biggest single transfer ever.

ICPR will be monitoring the A-1s and Pres as they come in. Check out our 2006 elections page for information on hot races and top donors as we get closer to Election Day.

6th District Race: Close Enough to Steal?

Voters intending to cast a ballot in the Maj. Duckworth (43%) v. Pete Roskam (38%) race should take a gander at this story from Boing Boing:

Here's video of Clint Curtis, a former programmer for Yang Enterprises (YEI) in Florida, testifying under oath that Representative Tom Feeney asked him to write a voting machine program to rig elections. Feeney is Republican Congressman who was the Speaker of the House of Florida at the time, as well as a lobbyist for Yang Enterprises, and Yang Enterprises' corporate attorney. *** In the video, Curtis testifies that Feeney asked him to write a program for touchscreen voting machines that could undetectably "flip the vote 51-49 to whoever you wanted it to go to and whichever race you wanted to win."

Rollcall -- via FlashReport -- confirms that Tom Feeney's chief of staff, Jason C. Roe, is currently on a leave of absence to work as the campaign manager for -- drumroll, please -- Peter Roskam.

Monday, October 09, 2006

Blagojevich the Right Choice for Illinois' Environment

Illinois’ air and water are cleaner today because of the work Governor Blagojevich has done to take on the polluters, and promote solutions to environmental problems. Sierra Club acknowledged this record of achievement with our endorsement Sunday.

This is exactly the kind of leadership that Illinois needs in the years ahead, when we face major choices about air, water, land, and energy policies. Illinois will decide whether or not we take serious action to combat global warming, whether we make smart, clean energy choices, whether we protect our drinking water supplies, and whether we protect our last remaining wetlands, prairies, and forests.

Unfortunately Washington has been making the wrong choices. Congress and the Bush Administration choose to keep subsidizing big oil, and to keep shortchanging renewable energy. Washington chooses to go slow and easy on pollution controls on coal-burning power plants, despite clear evidence that their mercury, smog, and soot emissions are hurting our children and many others. The U.S. Supreme Court has left most of Illinois’ remaining wetlands open to destruction, despite the fact that we count on them to protect us from floods, protect our drinking water, and provide a home for wildlife.

Washington isn’t helping, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t do better. We can do better, and under Governor Blagojevich, we have been doing better.

Under Governor Blagojevich, Illinois has done better at cleaning up air pollution. After the Bush Administration proposed going slow on installing mercury pollution controls on coal plants, Illinois is poised to require a 90% reduction of mercury by 2009 – by far the strongest response of any state. Three years ago, there were 11 hospital waste incinerators burning across our state, putting mercury, dioxin, and other pollutants into our air. Since Governor Blagojevich called on them to shut down, all but one of them has, and the last may close soon – a remarkable achievement.

Illinois is taking major steps toward a smart energy future, where consumers are protected against rate shocks, our air and water are cleaner, and new jobs are created in clean energy businesses. Governor Blagojevich has proposed a requirement that 10% of Illinois’ electricity come from wind power by 2015. He has led by example by pledging to power the buildings under his control in Springfield exclusively by wind energy. His energy plan includes provisions to encourage cellulosic ethanol development, and energy efficiency programs to save consumers and businesses money by saving energy.

Illinois is doing more to keep our drinking water clean and ensure that we have enough for everyone. Under Governor Blagojevich, Illinois has moved to control phosphorus pollution, which threatens drinking water and wildlife across our state. Illinois is also moving to make sure that we have enough ground and surface water for drinking, for agriculture, for industry, and for wildlife.

Finally, Illinois is serious about addressing the threats posed by global warming. While top scientists tell us we may only have ten years to do something about global warming before it becomes irreversible, Washington has their head in the sand and their hand out to special interests. With as little as ten years to reverse this problem, we can’t wait for change in Washington, we need to start now here in Illinois. This week the Governor announced the first step in a major effort to combat climate change, beginning with a commitment to reduce state government’s emissions of global warming pollution. Illinois is the first state in the Midwest to make that commitment. We know that Governor Blagojevich is committed to developing a comprehensive program to reduce Illinois’ contribution to global warming by regulating carbon emissions. We look forward to working with him and his team to come up with a solution that works best for Illinois.

The Sierra Club endorsement is a hard one to get. We do not make an endorsement in every race, but only the ones in which we find a candidate who truly shares our values, and who is willing to put the public’s interest in a clean environment above the special interests that too often dominate our politics. We do not endorse the lesser of two evils, we choose the strongest of champions. Four years ago, Governor Blagojevich became the first Illinois Governor to be endorsed by the Sierra Club, and we are proud to announce that he has earned our support again, and the support of all Illinois voters who value clean air, clean water, and Illinois’ natural heritage.

I have been working my whole adult life to encourage the State of Illinois to take strong action to protect our environment. Historically, Illinois has lagged behind – too often the goal would be to do the least we could to comply with the law Under Governor Blagojevich, however, Illinois a is emerging as a national leader in promoting innovative solutions to environmental problems. We no longer ask “what’s the least we can do”, and instead ask “what’s the best we can do.”

The people of Illinois want clean air and clean water. They know that our old energy policies have given them high prices, high pollution levels, and threats to our national security. They are hungry for solutions. Over the last four years, Governor Blagojevich has been working to promote those solutions, and Sierra Club is proud to recommend him to pro-environment voters across Illinois.

Originally posted at www.illinoissierraclub.blogspot.com

Daley Defends Hastert, GOP's October Surprise

This snippet from the Chicago Tribune must have caught the eye of Cong. Jesse Jackson, Jr., DCCC Chair Rahm Emmanuel, and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi:

Apparently shedding his Democratic Party label momentarily, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley joined other Illinois Republicans in worrying about the possibility of losing Hastert as speaker.

Daley noted Hastert's central role in bringing Illinois—and Chicago—a wealth of federal resources, and he hasn't shied away from aiding Chicago.

Hastert "has been very fair in appropriations ... from the CTA to the airport, transportation, education," Daley said. "He has been very helpful, not only for us but for Illinois."

Daley also had this to say (now removed from the Tribune website):

Daley also praised Hastert for bringing federal dollars to the city. The mayor hinted that if Democrats retake the House and Pelosi becomes speaker, Chicago will be worse off.

"She hails from California," Daley said. "Rightfully so, and she will take care of California."

Question: Will this help Hastert, hurt Daley, or neither?

OCTOBER SURPRISE

Hastert has been whining that this is a vast leftwing conspiracy meant to change the course of the November elections. They call it the "October Surprise."

That's why I found this story so interesting.

Karl Rove Promises October Surprise

Ronald Kessler
Thursday, Sept. 21, 2006

WASHINGTON -- In the past week, Karl Rove has been promising Republican insiders an "October surprise" to help win the November congressional elections.

President Bush's political strategist is also saying that the final two weeks before the elections will see a blitz of advertising, and the Republican National Committee is deploying an army of volunteers to key locations to help the grass-roots effort and monitor the elections.

The RNC is offering to fly in volunteers and cover their expenses.

Rove is not saying what the October surprise will be. Asked if he would elaborate and give his thinking about the coming elections, Rove told NewsMax that his take largely parallels what RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman said in a Sept. 5 NewsMax story.

As for the October Surprise, Rove said, "I'd rather let the balance [of plans for the elections] unroll on its own."

Then there was this:

A few weeks ago, another conservative publication, The American Spectator, reported that White House staffers had "been talking up the possibilities of an 'October Surprise' or two leading into the mid-term elections."

"They say the President feels confident he can still play a role in the election, that he intends to campaign hard for Republicans, and that on the policy front, there are a couple of issues that can be used as wedges along the way," according to a column written by "The Prowler."

The uber-friendly FOX News had this to say about the GOP 'October Surprise':

Months ago, the theory du jour was that President Bush would announce a major withdrawal of troops from Iraq just before Election Day. But with violence continuing to rock Iraq, those rumors faded away by midsummer. Lately, falling gas prices have also been credited to White House political strategist Karl Rove and the GOP.

Most theories on what the October surprise may be are based on pre-conceived notions about the political parties and their usual spheres of influence.

Randy Tichnell, an official for the Preston County Democratic Party in West Virginia, said it is not unusual to hear drivers talk suspiciously about dropping prices at the pump, even though prices tend to fall every year after the summer driving season.

Falling gas prices "definitely helps the consumer," and therefore, the incumbent party, Tichnell said. "Don't get me wrong here, but they say, 'Are they dumb enough to think we don't know what they are doing?'"

Another popular theory as to what this year's October surprise might have been or still could be is the carefully-timed capture of bin Laden. Analysts say that has been a top item since 2002, and for as long as he remains at-large, it will continue to be. Of course, that theory has its holes.

"In order to believe that, as a politically cynical October surprise, you would have to believe that [the Bush administration] could grab him at any old time," said Newsday columnist Ellis Hennican. "I don't believe it. But that would be the thing that could help [Republicans] right now."

Not so unserious thinkers familiar with Washington have been talking about possible air strikes on Iran as an option. They include former Sen. Gary Hart, who wrote in a Sept. 23 column on the Huffingtonpost Web log: "It should come as no surprise if the Bush administration undertakes a pre-emptive war against Iran sometime before the November election."

I would never accuse Karl Rove of bluffing, but I wonder if anything short of capturing Osama Bin Laden can pull Republicans out of this tailspin. The fact that North Korea is testing nuclear weapons and that Iran appears to be on that same path certainly does not help the GOP contention that they have made the world a safer place over the last six years. Only Bin Laden's capture can do that. The question is, will voters fall for it, and will it make a difference in Illinois?

Saturday, October 07, 2006

DePaul Blue Demon dementia

I wasn't able to post on this in the way I'd like to on my Treo while I was in the Great Smokies, but I want to comment on the latest outrage at Chicago's DePaul University.

About the time friend-of-the-blog Steven Plaut's American Thinker article was posted, Little Marathon Pundit and I were looking under rocks and logs in the Great Smoky Mountains hoping to find one of the many species of salamanders that inhabit the park. We didn't find any, but apparently that is the place you find a DePaul Assistant Political Science Professor Norman Finkelstein, as Plaut quotes Leon Wieseltier of New Republic:

He's poison, a disgusting self-hating Jew, something you find under a rock.

Marathon Pundit has been closely monitoring DePaul since the Thomas Klocek incident broke out of the walls of DePaul's cracked ivory tower last March.

But as bad as DePaul's behavior has been with that incident, there's still more stench emitting from the Chicago Catholic university.

More from Plaut's article:

The new academic school year is well underway. But there is one school in which this year will determine once and for all whether it will henceforth be considered to be a bona fide "university," or merely a make-pretend parody of one.

That institution is DePaul University.

This year will witness the most important decision in DePaul's entire history, ever since it was first founded by the Catholic "Vincentians." Over the next few months, DePaul will be deciding whether or not to grant Norman Finkelstein tenure on the basis of his "record." The same university that fired Prof. Thomas Klocek for daring to defend Israel in a campus conversation outside the classroom is now seriously considering granting tenure to Finkelstein on the basis of his hate-filled pseudo-scholarly screeds. At DePaul, Finkelstein serves as assistant professor of political science at DePaul, but scholarship is the last thing that occupies his time.

Before coming to DePaul he had been fired from several adjunct jobs at academic institutions in the New York area for his lack of serious academic credentials and scholarship. Virtually Finkelstein's entire publication record consists of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel books and non-professional articles. He has no publications whatsoever in any refereed academic journals, although he has hundreds in anti-Semitic, Holocaust Denial, and neo-nazi web magazines. The closest Finkelstein ever got to journal publication was with a couple of propaganda pieces in New Politics, a "socialist" non-academic magazine of far-leftist agitprop, sponsored by--among others--Noam Chomsky. This "journal" openly states that it "stands in opposition to all forms of imperialism, and is uncompromising in its defense of feminism and affirmative action." Finkelstein also writes in assorted pro-terror Palestinian "journals."

So Klocek gets fired by DePaul, but it appears that Norman Finkelstein might be on the verge of receiving lifetime employment from that same institution.

Demented? You bet.

To comment on this post, kindly visit Marathon Pundit.

Will Cook Shake and Bake Shakman?

Cross posted from ICPR's blog, The Race is On:

On September 20, FBI agents raided the Cook County Human Resources Department , carting off caseloads of materials in an on-going investigation into corrupt political hiring. They returned on Monday, October 2, focusing on the county Highway Department. And on Friday, October 6, lawyers for Cook County went into federal court to ask that anti-corruption monitoring be stopped . With so many investigations, now is not the time for Cook County to do away with the Shakman Decree.

Just like the City of Chicago, the County of Cook is now facing serious and credible allegations of illegal political hiring while simultaneously seeking to end judicial oversight designed to monitor and curtail political hiring. Over the past three decades, the Shakman Decree has emerged as the key tool to ensure that political and electoral considerations do not dictate hiring and the handing out of taxpayer-funded jobs. Efforts by the City and the County to do away with Shakman at the same time that they are facing such far-reaching and credible allegations of corruption throughout their hiring processes are absolutely shameful.

Gen. John Borling Revving Up Campaign Against Don Manzullo

Even before he made his official announcement as a write-in candidate Congress in the 16th district, Rockford’s General John Borling was in Crystal Lake.

“I was over at the Holiday Inn on the 29th,” he told McHenry County Blog.

“That was in the pre-announcement week. There was a meeting of the International Kick Boxing Association. I did very well. That’s where we got the 20-30 volunteers. This were young people, older people, women, kids.”

As a result, “I’ve got a McHenry County coordinator, Bill Henniger from Crystal Lake.

“And a list of about 30 volunteers that Bill is managing. But we are reaching out to all nine counties in the 16th district. If people want yard signs or want to volunteer call 815-229-4400 or go on the web site.”

Borling ran for the U.S. Senate in the Republican primary two years ago.

Why is he running for Congress again?

I am not doing this because I want to. I’m doing this because I have to.

I’m been fighting for this country my own life. I think this is the time for us to rise up and say we’ve had enough.

I’m not going to some kind of backbencher son of a bitch. I’m going to be a frontbencher son of a bitch.

Having not have seen any mention of Borling in either the Northwest or Daily Herald, McHenry County Blog asked if either had contracted.

“I’ve made contact with the Nortwest Herald and want an editorial board (meeting),” he said. No reporter has contacted him about his candidacy, however.

Even though there was a 3-way radio debate on Monday in Rockford, there is no information about its contents in a Google news search.

Here’s Borling’s take:

We had a 3-part debate last Monday on Monday on WNTA. Doug McDuff and Ken DeCosta were the moderators.

I think there was a spirited exchange of views, but at the end of the hour I think his (Manzullo’s) estimation was that he didn’t want to do that any more.

Objective listeners have voiced the same thought.

Here’s my view. Public officials need to be pro-active in engaging in public dialogue, especially at election time.

And, why is Borling running?

I’m doing this as an extraordinary basis. I believe in three main things. Both parties have let us down in the Congress. We return about 97% of the incumbents every election cycle and yet scream for change

It’s not going to happen with a bunch of career politicians, guys who want a job for life.

Brutally said, if you want to waste your vote, vote for more of the same.

If you want to take a chance for change in the 16th district, I’m asking them to write me in as an independe3nt and I will go and try to shine a light on this naked partisan bickering that is not in the interest of the nation or the district.

Charles Madigan, senior editor of the Trib (Chicago Tribune) said it best, “To re-elect the current congress is like eating mashed potatoes with hair shavings.

So people, if they want a change, have a chance to vote independent on a write-in basis.

They can write in General John Borling or John Borling or General Borling, as long as the intent of voter is clear, it does not have to exact.

What’s Borling doing to advance his candidacy?

We’re out in print and soon TV and radio. We’re out in all the media outlets and our knowledge is that people are fed up and they want a change.

We’re getting yard signs today. We have 2,000 yard signs for anybody that has a big yard.

I didn’t have the funds to make a media buy the first time out (when he ran for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate).

What’s he want to do if he gets to Congress?

The idea is not to go and not be just one voice, but to go and marshal voices, individuals who want to start a new centrist political movement. A place where moderate Republicans where moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats can be freed up from the party shackles that bind them now.

“The challenge from the Senate campaign still goes,” Borling said. “If they want to do a winner take all push-up contest out in the parking lot, I’m willing to do that, too.”

The address where campaign contributions may be sent is
Borling for Congress. Box 4703, Rockford IL 61110-4703. The campaign’s phone number is 815-229-4400. Here is the web site.

McHenry County Blog, the one that doesn't go to sleep on the weekend.
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Photo provided by Borling for Congress.

Previous article about Borling's campaign.

Friday, October 06, 2006

Randomness: The Senator Michael invasion

There are at least six hot Senate campaigns where hard-charging Democratic challengers are in the hunt to pick up a seat held by a Republican today:

Michael Bond for Geo-Karis' seat
Michael Frerichs for Winkel's seat
Michael Noland for Rauschenberger's seat

Peter Gutzmer for Wendell Jones' seat
Linda Holmes for Petka's seat
Dan Kotowski for Axley's seat

Three Michaels? What is up with that?

If they all win, then they'd join Michael Jacobs in the Senate.

And if they don't form the Michael caucus to compete with the Sullivan caucus, something's wrong.

The four of them could join up with Mike Boland, Mike Bost, Michael McAuliffe, Michael Tryon, Mike Smith and of course, Speaker Madigan.

By the way, I predict a veto-proof majority in the Senate. I don't know which four seats, but I think it will be the reverse of 1994.

An Email to Eric Zorn About Real Estate Tax Assessments

Eyes glaze over, right.

Time for an aspirin already.

Nevertheless, I thought my few readers in Cook County might be interested in governmental deception that has been going on probably as long as I have been watching the local political arena (since 1966 when I ran for McHenry County Treasurer).

Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn managed to obtain a confession of sorts from Cook County Assessor Jim Houlihan.

Houlihan was a reform state representative first elected in 1972 when I was. He was Governor Dan Walker’s floor leader. (Spokesman would be a better description, because he had very few troops to lead.)

Zorn was probing whether Governor Rod Blagojevich was given special consideration when his assessment went up hardly at all, while his neighbors’ jumped.

Read his column first and then this email to him:

You have a really large story buried in your assessment piece.

It is in Jim (Houlihan)'s admission of what has been a FACT since at least the late 1980's:
"...as Houlihan said in an interview Wednesday, in practice, the assessed value is more like 10 percent of the market value."
I have chided reporters for decades about accepting the fiction that assessments are at 16%. I’ve done it in letters and even in letters to the editor.

In the late 1980's, I got all the sales (from Revenue Department printouts) from Wheeling and Palatine Townships and did assessment to sales price studies for both townships. I think I found one home that had been assessed at 16%.

At that time the median average assessment level was 8-9%. It may be higher now; I haven't bothered to check with the Department of Revenue.

So, why would the assessor's office want people to believe their homes were assessed at 16%.

As one whose first job in elective office was McHenry County Treasurer from 1966-70 and who started looking at assessments the second year when I found out how boring the Treasurer's Office was, I have been amazed that the vast majority of Chicago reporters have let the Cook County Assessor's Office get by with what certainly deserves to be called the "BIG LIE" that homes (and small apartment buildings) are assessed at 16% of what they are worth.

What utter nonsense!

Thank you for getting Jim to admit what has been the truth since well before he took office.

Now, I challenge you to do something with it.

Consider my theory about why the BIG LIE has been perpetrated.

If one is adept at junior high school math, any Cook County homeowner can figure out that they are not assessed at 16% of what they could sell their homes for.

But (and, it's a big "BUT"), if my home is not assessed at 16%, I'm underassessed, right?

So, I better not complain, right?

Well, no. That's not right.

State assessment law is based on equity. (And, goodness knows, I am not an attorney.)

But, if you are assessed higher than the (median) average assessment, I argued on the House floor when Maureen Martin was sponsoring the bill to put Cook County under the State Property Tax Appeal Board, you are overassessed and should appeal your home's assessment.

Let's say Houlihan is correct in stating that the average assessment is at 10%. (He may not be, remember. It may be lower.)

Then anyone whose assessment is more than he/she could sell their home for should appeal.

In Cook County, one's appeal is first made to the Board of Review.

If one's assessment is not lowered to whatever than median assessment level is, then one should appeal to the State Property Tax Appeal Board.

And, one does not need an attorney to do either. You can do it yourself.

I could tell how, but I just wanted to get you thinking about the implications of the assessor's office lying to taxpayers for decade upon decade.

Who benefits? (In the past it discouraged appeals, so the appeal agencies won. Now I don't know who wins by perpetuating it.)

Who loses?

Always good questions when one sees stupidity in government.

I still remember showing Harold Washington the numbers for the West Side township (yes, Chicago still has township lines, which are used to divide the city into assessment areas). I can't remember what the "official" assessment level was, but his township was assessed at a higher percentage than any other.

"They did that to us," he exclaimed.

cal

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Also at McHenry County Blog today is an account of the altercation between Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice Bob Thomas and a columnist he is suing.

The Ethanol Myth

There's lots of partisan stuff to blog this week. I thought I would take up a tough policy issue for a change of pace.

The special report "The Ethanol Myth" in Consumer Reports caught my eye on the news stand. Ethanol is a big issue in Illinois. We are major corn growers. We are among the largest ethanol producers and consumers. Illinois politicians are constantly trying to outdo each other on who loves ethanol more, and the public sees ethanol as a panacea for rising consumer prices, environmental protection, and world peace.

Consumer Reports smacks many of those notions down:

...after putting a 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe FFV through an array of fuel economy, acceleration, and emissions tests, and interviewing more than 50 experts on ethanol fuel, CR determined that E85 will cost consumers more money than gasoline and that there are concerns about whether the government’s support of FFVs is really helping the U.S. achieve energy independence. Among our findings:

The fuel economy of the Tahoe dropped 27 percent when running on E85 compared with gasoline, from an already low 14 mpg overall to 10 mpg (rounded to the nearest mpg). This is the lowest fuel mileage we’ve gotten from any vehicle in recent years.

With the retail pump price of E85 averaging $2.91 per gallon in August, according to the Oil Price Information Service, which tracks petroleum and other fuel prices, a 27 percent fuel-economy penalty means drivers would have paid an average of $3.99 for the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline.

When we calculated the Tahoe’s driving range, we found that it decreased to about 300 miles on a full tank of E85 compared with about 440 on gasoline. So you have to fill up more often with E85.

The majority of FFVs are large vehicles like the Tahoe that get relatively poor fuel economy even on gasoline. So they will cost you a lot at the pump, no matter which fuel you use.

The FFV surge is being motivated by generous fuel-economy credits that auto-makers get for every FFV they build, even if it never runs on E85. This allows them to pump out more gas-guzzling large SUVs and pickups, which is resulting in the consumption of many times more gallons of gasoline than E85 now replaces.

The subscribers-only section points to some bigger problems with ethanol policy. Scientists are divided on whether ethanol offers more energy than the cultivation, harvest, transportation, processing and delivery process consumes. A Cornell University professor says that we consume 30% more energy in ethanol production than the fuel actually provides. According to Argonne Labs, the positive energy balance of ethanol is 35%.

Proponents of ethanol argue it doesn't add to the world's balance of greenhouse gases because it simply puts the same greenhouse gases in that it took out. But Tad Patzek, Berkeley professor of geo-engineering, says burning ethanol creates 50% more carbon dioxide than burning gasoline.

The National Corn Growers Association actually highlights a problem that most of us don't think about. 13.6% of the 2005 U.S. corn crop went to ethanol. While that corn isn't fit for human consumption, it means that corn fit for human consumption or for use as animal feed wasn't grown on that land. The NCGA says ethanol drives up the cost of corn by 5 to 10 cents a bushel:

"The folks who feed corn to cattle are already expressing concern about rising corn prices," Washburn says. "Once corn prices approach $3, these concerns will intensify"

Ironically for Illinois and our politicians, our love affair with corn-based ethanol appears shortsighted and recent investments in corn-based ethanol processing plants downright foolish.

"Most experts don't see the future of the ethanol industry taking root in America's cornfields. A more promising long-term solution is cellulosic ethanol, which can be made from a variety of other sources such as corn stover (leaves, stalks, and other leftover parts), rye straw, wood pulp, and possibly switchgrass (commonly used for hay).

'If this country is going to get big into ethanol, we need to tap into cellulosic ethanol,' says Friedman of the UCS (Union of Concerned Scientists), 'because it's cleaner and requires less fossil fuels than corn' to produce."

CR goes on to point out that an acre of say, switchgrass, actually returns much more energy than an acre of corn, so moving to cellulosic ethanol would allow us to replace much more gasoline, perhaps meeting 30% of the nation's gasoline needs and replacing every drop we get from OPEC.

CR cautions that providing enough raw vegetation to meet that goal requires tripling the amount of cultivated land and improving our ethanol processing technology. My bet is that if we move to ethanol we'll be getting alot of the raw material from Canada, but wouldn't it be ironic if the Prairie State went back to growing grass?

A thoughtful and balanced piece, with many nuggets I had to leave out. But it should be on every Illinois lawmaker and policymaker's reading list.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

U.S. Atty Targets Democratic Party Corruption Today

With the sentencing of former Secretary of State George Ryan's Chief of Staff Scott Fawell a second time today, perhaps U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald thought he should balance out the partisan scales.

He released the following press release this afternoon about the indictement of Niles Village President and local Democratic Party boss Nick Blase. He likes to call himself a "mayor," but he isn't.

Maybe the hidden text of the two events is that both of the power parties have corrupt elements.

If you would like to read the whole press release, it is posted at McHenry County Blog.

Hare vs. Zinga, Round Two

The 17th district congressional candidates squared off again last night at Western Illinois University in Macomb. This was their first in district debate following a debate recorded for television in Champaign several weeks ago.

One of the interesting things I noticed in the article was this:

A panelist then asked Zinga about her comments last month about racial screenings at airports.

Zinga said last month all Middle Eastern men should get secondary security screenings as they board airplanes.

Her campaign manager said Zinga really meant to say there should be no threat of anti-discrimination legal action against airlines if the pre-screening system to identify problem passengers identifies more than three people from the same ethnic group.

On Wednesday night, Zinga said, "there is nothing racial about it; it's risk profiling."

Regardless of position on the issue, is it politically smart to hold to the position? Would it be more politically savvy to just let it go? Why not stick with the initial response of a goof? It seems like a pretty hard-line position that is stirring up anger in the 17th. Certainly there are supporters of it, but they most likely were voting for her regardless.

Meanwhile, in the 6th District...

We should not let the rapidly developing Foley/Hastert pervert cover-up distract us from other Illinois news, so open up your Daily Herald and let's see what's happening in the 6th District congressional race today:

The congressional page scandal surfaced as an issue in the 6th Congressional District race Tuesday, with Democrat Tammy Duckworth suggesting foe Peter Roskam needs to demand accountability from Republican leadership.
“Roskam had an opportunity to say we need to take responsibility, and he didn’t do that,” said Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran from Hoffman Estates. “If I were there, I’d be firmly calling for accountability whether it was my party or not.”

Okay, we would expect the Democratic candidate to be pushing this grotesque example of Republican Corruption and Cronyism^TM. But that will just give Roskam another opportunity to declare his loyalty to his party bosses -- as he has since Hastert's role in the scandal broke -- right?

“I’m not saying I don’t believe Hastert. I’m saying this story is evolving literally by the hour,” Roskam said.

Well, that was not a very ringing endorsement of the Speaker of the House was it? Especially from a candidate who's message is "Roskam: He'll Do What Republican Party Bosses Tell Him."

Observers as far away as the Amherst Times are noting Roskam's flagging support for Hastert:

Even a Republican from Hastert's home state of Illinois expressed reservations about asking the speaker for campaign help.

"We still take the position that we want all the facts," said Ryan McLaughlin, a spokesman for state Sen. Peter Roskam, who is running for an open seat now in Republican hands.

It seems that the retreat from Denny has begun and the latest memo from the NRCC to Pete's campaign has instructed him to slowly... back... away... from Hastert.

But, after allowing the Foley/Hastert scandal to dominate the news cycle for nearly a week, surely the Roskam camp has found a way to change the subject... right? Well, let's take a look in the Herald:

Roskam, a personal-injury lawyer, faces another challenge in the form of a lawsuit filed Tuesday in DuPage County court.

Hmmm.. that can't be good news for DuPage county's number one dog-bite lawyer.

Attorney Ralph Hruby, who is representing Lindeen, said she suffered severe injuries in the 2000 accident that required numerous operations. Although the lawsuit comes in the midst of a heated election, Hruby said the timing is not political but is a result of the lawsuit being dismissed.

Roskam’s campaign questioned the timing.

“Peter Roskam was admitted to the American Bar Association in 1989 and it’s odd that 30 days before an election, his first malpractice suit is filed,” campaign manager Ryan McLaughlin said.

It's heartening to see that, although he no longer doesn't not fail to disbelieve Hastert, Roskam has wholeheartedly embraced Hastert's "My Problems Are All Due To A Vast Democratic Plot" conspiracy theories.

Another city councilman turns TV pitchman

And you thought Bill Spears was the only Peoria councilman whose face keeps showing up on television commercials these days.

Fifth District councilman Pat Nichting filmed a commercial urging the state legislature to protect small businesses from lawsuits. It's a campaign by the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform to oppose what they say is an anti-business climate caused by frivolous lawsuits. Councilman Nichting is identified only as a small business owner (when he's not representing the Fifth District, he's the owner of Panco Food Service Equipment Corp.). Councilman Spears, as you might have heard on some blog, represents the 4th District and is running against State Rep. Aaron Schock.

I'm not sure I agree that the situation is as dire as this scare ad suggests. I'd like to see a list of small businesses that have closed up shop because someone sued them. And then I'd like to see the court records to see whether these suits were justified. Newspapers are filled with stories of unethical and crooked businesses who went out of business because of lawsuits. This is a GOOD thing.

I imagine Councilman Nichting and the others would just like to see their liability insurance rates go down.

Note: If they were to take a vote, Councilman Nichting would be elected "council member least likely to speak directly into the microphone." Thankfully, the people who filmed this commercial got his voice recorded just fine. I imagine there were many, many takes.

Hat tip to Curt D. Mercadante, who notes that this spot is playing in "southern Illinois," which could mean the anything south of Interstate 80, or the southern tip of the state.

Cross posted to Peoria Pundit.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Prostitute Rescue Mission Genesis House Leaders Steal More Than State Subsidy

I first learned about Genesis House during the late 1990’s when one of its leaders visited my Springfield office seeking state financial support.

The mission was certainly worthy—getting prostitutes out of their profession.

How said to read the story of corruption by Genesis House leaders.

My first question was,

How much state money did the organization receive?

Here’s how much Genesis House got for the last four years.

2006 $190,446.61
2005 $76,513.25
2004 $70,000.00
2003 $31,920.00

If I have added correctly, that totals $374,879.86.

My guess is that these were member earmarks, but one really needs inside information to link legislators to such initiatives.

Regardless, any legislators involved could be hardly criticized for such a good cause.

Articles indicate there was city and federal money, as well.

The total stolen was about $526,000. Or about $5,000 more for the assistant, according to Associated Press.

Last spring, the Sun-Times says it also received “$75,000 grant in 2004 from the Oprah Winfrey Foundation.”

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Also at McHenry County Blog: The Illinois Association of School Boards convention seminars I would like to attend, including one that looks like a new way to raise taxes without a referendum.

No Words to Describe My Thoughts

(I've removed the graphic that I had with this post because I've decided that I'm not going to bring myself down to Jill's level of tactics.)

I am out of town and had no intention of posting for several days. But then something happened which I just couldn't let pass. Feel free to comment, but I'm not sure when I will be able to get the comments posted. I take the comments below very personally and am amazed that somebody would wear their ignorance so proudly on their sleeve. To call them extreme would be an insult to extremists.

I feel confident in saying that I have made a lot of effort, and had unprecedented success, in trying to work with the different sides on the abortion issue. No small feat. And I believe that all sides appreciated the efforts of myself and Rep. Brandon Phelps in negotiating the passage of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act last year.

It should be noted that even then, when groups such as Illinois Federation for Right to Life, the ACLU and Planned Parenthood reached an accord, Jill Stanek was on the sidelines trying to derail everything.

I announced legislation yesterday that I knew would be controversial, but was sincere, and strikes what I believe to be a reasonable common ground on the very contentious issue of parental notification.

Here is the bill

Here is the press release

And here is possibly the most absurd and offensive thing that I have heard uttered by somebody (I am printing it in its entirety so you can 'appreciate' this for what it's worth):

Fritchey promotes more clergy sex scandals

Just when we thought our minor girls were nearly safe, due to the IL Supreme Court's recent action to finalize the IL parental notification law, Democrat Rep. John Fritchey Monday introduced a parental notice bill in the IL House that would allow girls to notify clergy instead of parents before aborting.

John, what are you thinking? Aren't we just getting over clergy sex scandals in IL? And you want to provide them new safe harbor? You actually want to make it legal for girls to notify their clergy rapists rather than parents when they're pregnant - and then bypass the judicial bypass?

I know what John is thinking, actually. He is thinking he must do the bidding of the abortion industry to keep those endorsements and campaign donations coming in.

And the abortion industry is thinking it will maintain "clergy" on staff to rubber stamp minor abortions. ("I hope every Planned Parenthood affiliate in our organization may someday have clergy presence and staff chaplaincy." - Dr. Barbara Coeyman, chaplain at PP Texas Capital Region, September 2005.)

Fritchey's bill unconscionably promotes more child sex abuse by clergy. The bill itself is a scandal.

Addendum, 8:51 a.m.: BTW, Republican Rep. Rosemary Mulligan, who spoke at the press conference unveiling this ridiculous bill, once advocated aborting her own grandchildren during a committee meeting I attended. She's certainly no advocate for properly functioning families.

Incredible. Outrageous. And will not be forgotten.

To read, or post, comments, visit Open House

John Shimkus on KMOX

Congressman John Shimkus sat down with Charlie Brennan of KMOX radio in St. Louis this morning and talked about the Mark Foley emails.

The audio is available for listening or for download on Charlie Brennan's web page. Click on the "featured audio" link for 10-04-06.

3,000 at Village Board Meeting

In what has to be a record attendance at a Fox River Valley and, perhaps, an Illinois village board meeting, the Chicago Tribune is reporting 3,000 people showed up at the Carpentersville village board hall Tuesday night.

All of this was started by Carpentersville Trustees Paul Humpfer and Judy Sigwalt.

According to the Chicago Tribune reporter George Houde, their proposal

would deny a business permit to any employer found to have knowingly hired undocumented workers and would fine landlords $1,000 if they rented apartments to illegal immigrants.

It also would make English the official language for village documents, forms and signs.

A friend of McHenry County Blog observes,

Both of these trustees are up for election on April 17th.

Both lost elections on March 21st for Republican Precinct Committeeman. (Sigwalt challenged Dundee Republican Chairman John Noverini; Humpfer lost for an open committeeman's post.)

Humpfer lost the election for village president last year to Bill Sarto.

Basically, I'm wondering if these two officials are so "gung-ho" on fighting illegal aliens, why are they now, just over 6 months in front of the next election, doing this now?

Did they address these in their most previous campaigns? Are they genuinely "Johnny-come-lately?” And of course, is this a coincidence?

Humpfer has been twice appointed (but never elected) to the Carpentersville village board.

In April 2005, right after Humpfer lost the village president's race, Trustee Bob Whitehouse (who was also the principal at Dundee-Crown High School in D300) suddenly announced his resignation.

Humpfer resigned his trustee seat with his term about to expire, and--what a coincidence--was appointed by his village board allies to serve out Whitehouse's term through April 2007.

Are these local officials posturing for the April election (or another future election) by talking tough on illegal aliens crackdown?

Are they able to accomplish anything more than making headlines?

Carpentersville, by the way, is in House Speaker Dennis Hastert's congressional district.

Share your comments here or at McHenry County Blog, where you can read about a homeless veterans stand down (and find out what a "stand down" is.)

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

I was surprised to see this in Chicagoist yesterday...

They blogged about Chicago State University (based on an article in the Sun-Times). It seems that high school college counselors from the south and southwest suburbs are taking another look at that school. Chicago State University is even trying to get some of those kids from a suburb such as Oak Lawn to come to school there.

Chicago State lies on a campus lined with trees (it is a very nice campus, BTW) surrounded by King Drive, 95th street, the Illinois Central Railroad and then 99th Street (or the Calument or Bishop Ford Expressway which is parallel to 99th Street). They been building up too with a new convocation center and they're also building a new library as well.

From Oak Lawn to say 95th and King Drive is only a 20 minute drive away. Yet a high school senior from Oak Lawn would know nothing about Chicago State. Another thing Chicago State is also using as an asset, low tuition....

At the breakfast, CSU President Elnora Daniel delivered the message: We're in your backyard, we offer a large variety of quality programs, and we're affordable. At $6,400, annual tuition is lower than that at all but two of the 11 four-year public schools in the state and far less than at any local private school.

Maloney, who chairs the Senate Higher Education Committee, said CSU shouldn't remain an "untapped resource'' for students from these nearby towns. Although many students would still rather go farther afield to attend college, skyrocketing costs have left many others in need of affordable options closer to home, he said. Some kids from Catholic high schools commute as far away as Loyola --and pay $26,000 in tuition -- instead of going to CSU, which costs less than some are paying for high school.

So why haven't students from say the suburb of Oak Lawn never went to school at Chicago State...

Part of the reason is race-related, says state Sen. Edward Maloney (D-Chicago), a CSU graduate and former faculty member at Oak Lawn.

CSU's student body is 86 percent African American, while Oak Lawn High School is 84 percent white, a makeup similar to that of other area suburban schools.

CSU admits it didn't recruit heavily in those suburbs, while high school counselors acknowledge they didn't encourage students to go to CSU.

While I can agree it's race related. I can probably say that when I was looking for colleges, Chicago State wasn't seen as a good school. Indeed amongst my senior classmates many years ago, it could be seen as a school of last resort. Perhaps the current administration is trying to change that now.

And I hope so too. Why shouldn't this be a place where students want to come and learn? This school doesn't have to be nor should it remain a school of last resort.

So what did area counselors have to say about this school...

Counselors interviewed after the meeting said they were impressed with many things about CSU, including its small class sizes, Division I sports programs and new pharmacy program. And they were wowed by its facilities, including a sparkling new library.

The result? "I can't wait to get back and recommend [CSU] to my students,'' said Gina O'Brien, counselor at Shepard High School in Palos Heights. Others agreed.

Oh yeah let's dispell one myth right now...

Another counselor, Sharon Geinosky of Queen of Peace High School in Burbank, said some students had the "perception that the neighborhood is not safe.'' But at the meeting, counselors learned that the campus, in fact, is one of the safest in the state.

Crossposted at It's My Mind

John Borling Running Write-In Campaign for Congress in 16th

Boy, go on a 3-day Christian retreat and one does miss some news.

Actually, I could have found this if I had read the Rockford Register-Star’s political column by Chuck Sweeney last Thursday before I left for the Walk to Emmaus at Woodstock’s Resurrection Center.

The headline pretty much tells it all:

Borling marshals forces for write-in run for Congress

John Borling is the retired Air Force major general who ran quite unsuccessfully (2% of the vote) for the U.S. Senate when, how many, 8 people were seeking the GOP nomination that Jack Ryan won.

Sweeney reports that his slogan/platform is

“Jobs, Energy, Taxes and Spending,” or JETS.

Why is he running? The column quotes him thusly:

Both parties have let us down; they’ve been taken over, one by the hard right, the other by the hard left.

Here is the message on his campaign phone number of 815-229-4400:

Hi, this is John Borling at Borling for Congress. Thanks for calling.

As you know, we’re running an independent write-in campaign for the congressional seat up here in Northwest Illinois currently held by Don Manzullo.

We think both the Democrats and the Republicans have let us down and that’s what prompts this effort. We’re grateful for any support you can give us.

All of us are out on the road currently. We will respond to your call if you’d leave a message at the prompt. But, if you would like to volunteer particularly, please be sure we have all of your contact information, including your name and phone number, email, etc.

If you would like to contribute, you can do so by send a check to Borling for Congress (B O R L I N G for Congress), Box 4703, Rockford, Illinois 61110-4703.

Thanks very much calling. We’ll come back to you as quickly as we can and, again, please write in John Borling, an independent on November 7th.

The odds for hitting a number on roulette are better than those for winning a write-in, but Borling could be setting himself up for a 16th district third-party challenge in 2008 similar to Bill Scheurer’s this year in the 8th congressional district.

Borling supports abortion. (He was the only U.S. Senate candidate two years ago to do so.) Incumbent Republican Congressman Don Manzullo does not.

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Church is Resurrection Center in early morning.

Borling logo is from his 2004 U.S. Senatorial campaign. It says, "Duty Calls Again."

Worse than "read my lips"

Gubernatorial Candidate Rod Blagojevich, 2002:

“Reform and Renewal”

“End business as usual”

“Rock the system”

Governor Rod Blagojevich, 2006:

"First of all, let me say I never promised to ride in on a white horse. I'm not very good with horses. I probably would have fallen off."

It’s one thing to make a bold campaign promise and not fulfill it. But if you are going to do that, at least have the courage (even I’m tired of throwing the Gov’s own colorful words back in his face) and admit that – in hindsight - you never should have made it, because you didn’t realize the enormity of the problem, or something like that. But acting like you never really made that promise in the first place – when it was the central theme of your campaign – is pathetic and insulting.

Monday, October 02, 2006

Pensions To Be Based on Phantom Salaries

Being a retired (or fired, as I like to say about my primary loss-induced retirement) legislator gets me some “heads ups” that others don’t get.

One was contained in the most recent newsletter of the General Assembly Retirement System.

Did you know that legislators who are defeated this fall (plus those who are retiring for whatever reason) will receive pensions based on salaries they never received?

Most will be based on figures $11,000 higher than they have ever been paid.

That’s what the General Assembly Retirement System says.

Why?

Because the Compensation Review Board recommended 13.1% in cost-of-living raises that the legislators didn’t take from 2003-2005 and the legislators haven’t rejected it yet.

(The Compensation Review Board was the brainchild of State Rep. Peg Breslin. She got it passed so legislators would not have to vote for their own pay increases. The Board recommends salary increases, which go into effect if both houses of the General Assembly don’t reject them in the same motion. Thus far, they have not done so. But they still have the veto session and the early part of 2007 in which such a miracle might happen. After leaving the General Assembly, Breslin is now a retired appellate court judge.)

Another 3.2% will be added on top of that for this year’s COLA because of the Board’s recommendation.

That’s a 16.7% retirement “kicker.”

So, even though a committee chairman or spokesman (and virtually every House member is one or the other) earns $66,390 a year, retiring members will have their pensions based on a $77,477 salary level.

It doesn’t matter that they will have never been paid that much, that will be their salary base.

And, the difference--$11,087—will also be seen as a salary jump for most legislators next session, if they don’t vote down the Review Board’s recommendation.

To read the pension plan logic, find the link in the McHenry County Blog version of this article.

Isn't that Special?

I just got word that the Speaker is sending a letter to the Governor calling on him to convene a Special Session within the next week to overturn the Illinois Commerce Commission actions regarding power rates. The proposal is geared at passage of HB5766, which has gotten a lot of traction around the state.

I have received dozens of calls and e-mails in support of the bill, and this is one of those issues that consumers can clearly comprehend.

The Speaker rightfully points out that the envisioned competition in the energy market has not materialized. He then goes on to label the recently-concluded power auction a 'sham procedure' aimed at doing little more than padding the bottom line of the energy companies and their investors.

The energy folks are going to have their work cut out for them trying to convince the powers that be that any change to the proposed pricing increases could set us up for California-esque brown-outs. In an election year, I'm betting on the Speaker.

To read, or post, comments, visit Open House

Must be Nice

In the No Wonder the Governor's in no Hurry to Help Us with the Bill Dept.:

Eric Krol follows up on a story about the Governor's flat-lined property tax reassessment that I had first read about in a Sunday column by Kristen McQuery. I'll just give you a snippet of the Daily Herald article, but you should check out both pieces:

On a square-foot basis, his home is assessed well below others of its class in his neighborhood.
The governor’s 0.98 percent assessment increase in what’s been a hot Chicago real estate market left one government watchdog group scratching its head.
Jay Stewart, executive director of the Better Government Association and a Northwest Side resident, stopped short of saying the governor had received a special break on his taxes, but he did say Blagojevich may be “the luckiest property owner on the Northwest Side.”
“I can tell you from personal experience that people in that neighborhood would die for a 1 percent assessment increase,” Stewart said.

The Governor lives in the north end of my district, about 3 miles away from me. And I can tell you that I don't know of ONE person between my house and his that wouldn't give a limb for a 1% increase in their assessment. My constituents (and I) are getting pounded by property taxes, and we are getting no help from the Governor's office in trying to find a solution to this issue.

And don't get me started on today's Tribune editorial, which simplifies the issue to the point of irrelevance.

It's safe to say that the collective absence of will to fix how we fund schools and assess properties has been one of the most disillusioning aspects of my tenure in the House.

To read, or post, comments, visit Open House

And Now, the Debate(s)

Cross posted from ICPR's blog, The Race is On:

If you’ve tuned in for the new Fall TV lineups, you’ve probably also seen a bunch of political campaign ads. It’s that time of year again: the weeks before the election is when candidates want to define what you think of them. But what happened to debates? Remember when the candidates for office used to face off with each other, taking questions from voters and saying what they believed? Gov. Blagojevich and Treasurer Topinka announced months ago that they wanted a dozen debates; now, after tonight’s radio debate in Decatur, we’ll be lucky to see a direct conversation between the two main candidates (let alone one with Rich Whitney, or broadcast on TV in prime time). But those TV ads will run nonstop until Tuesday, November 7. If you’d like to know more about the candidates than what they tell you in a completely scripted, controlled ad, give’em a call and tell them to debate. For more on this topic, see Cindi Canary’s op-ed in today’s Crain’s.

Is Anyone This Creepy?

Is Republican pedophile Mark Foley's dirty money headed to the 6th District?

From the New York Times:

Mr. Foley, who served on the House Ways and Means Committee, was a prolific fund-raiser. His campaign account had a balance of $2.7 million at the end of August, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Carl Forti, the communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Sunday that the committee would gladly accept Mr. Foley’s money or part of it to devote to House races. Mr. Foley already gave $100,000 to the committee in July, campaign records show, as part of the party’s Battleground Program, to which members are asked to contribute.

"The money is in the control of Mr. Foley," Mr. Forti said. "Whatever he decides to do with it is up to him."

We know the NRCC is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 6th District to attack Maj. Duckworth and support Pete Roskam.

And we all remember how a righteous Roskam demanded that Maj. Duckworth return a $2100 campaign contribution from Rosie O’Donnell after O'Donnell compared fundamentalist Christians to fundamentalist Muslims.

The question voters in the 6th District now need answered is: "Will Peter Roskam join his party leaders and 'gladly accept Mr. Foley's money or part of it' to assist his campaign for Congress?"

We know that Roskam strongly opposes contributions from liberal women who say something stupid, but does he also oppose contributions from Republican men who solicit sex from children?

Originally posted at the So-Called "Austin Mayor" blog

Stroger, Blagojevich to Send Flowers To Foley

Once again, the sanctimonious GOP is caught with its pants down (and its fingers on the key board).

As you know by now, Rep. Foley plays with boys in his employ, sending them emails that violate the sexual predator laws he enacted. Just as sickening, several Illinois GOP leaders—who supervise the page program—apparently failed to do anything about the pedoterrorist in their closet.

So Illinois Dems will push this issue hard, reminding voters that the Illinois GOP talks about family values, but value hot pants and long showers more. This story will dominate the press’ attention for the next forty days, killing most other election related stories, forcing candidates to address this issue.

And when they do, Democrats will win, and Republicans lose, specifically Peraica and Topinka.

“As your Cook County Board President,” said an energized Todd Stroger, “we will ensure that our interns our safe and free from threats that plagued the Republican controlled page program. My Republican opponent…”

“As your Governor, I won’t tolerate this behavior,” said Blagojevich “I just find it hard to understand why Republican leaders would allow children to be victimized. My Republican opponent…”

Ouchy.

CP: Illinois Shadow

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Pretend You're a Legisltive Candidate - Part 2

The Chicago Sun-Times also asks legislative candidates to fill out a questionnaire each election. It’s usually more fun than the Chicago Tribune’s, especially in its biography. See especially questions 6 and 7.

Here are the Sun-Times questions. If you feel so inclined, share your answers in the comment section.

1. Longer-term, should Illinois change the taxation formula for funding schools? How?

2. Should the state provide more funding for the CTA, Meta, Pace and other public transit systems? Explain your answer.

3. What should be done to reduce the influence of politics in state hiring and contracts?

4. Should Illinois change its lobbyist disclosure laws? How?

5. Have you held elective or appointive political office or have you been employed by any branch of government?

6. Please list jobs or contracts you, members of your immediate family or business partners have had with government.

7. Name your biggest campaign contributors and the amount they contributed.

8. Which plan for fixing Illinois school funding do you prefer? Do you favor Gov. Blagojevich’s plan to sell or lease the Illinois Lottry or state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka’s proposal for a Chicago casino and more gambling slots at existing casinos? Explain your answer.

9. Should the state raise the minimum way as Gov. Blagojevich has suggested? Explain.

10. Should the state provide more funding for embryonic stem cell research? Explain.

11. South Dakota passed a law to make abortion illegal. Should Illinois do the same? Explain.

While the Chicago Tribune does not have a question on abortion, the Sun-Times writes about the South Dakota bill that is being tested in a referendum this year. Here is the goal of the bill’s sponsor, which Penny Pullen and I heard when we visited him for two hours earlier this month.

Here's where you can read my 2002 responses to the Sun-Times gubernatorial questionnaire.

More at McHenry County Blog.

The More, The Merrier?

In what could be yet another interesting twist in the upcoming February municipal elections, the Sun-Times today reveals that the Service Employees International Union is going to include the name of Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley in polling about Chicago's mayoral election.

In my opinion, Quigley has bravely taken on some issues that nobody else was willing to touch, and in today's climate, that should carry some weight in some sectors of the electorate.

But given that in the post Big Box world, SEIU and other unions are lining up behind Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., one can't help but wonder if they are just viewing Quigley as a convenient straw man for their purposes. As S/T writer Abdon Pallasch notes:

The union, Jackson and the other challengers reportedly would love a high-profile Irish-American challenger to jump in the race and siphon white votes from Daley to push the mayor below a majority in the February election and force an April runoff.

In any event, for myriad reasons, the February elections could heat up an otherwise cold and dreary winter.

To read, or post, comments, go to Dome-icile

The Uriah Heep of Illinois Politics

Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley is being touted for Mayor by the Big Box Bunglers - The Red Guard of Services Employee International Union -SEIU to take votes from Mayor Richard M. Daley.

I have long held the opinion that Plutarch was right and that people in political life often parallel the lives of others. Winston Churchill seemed the reincarnation of his great ancestor - The Duke of Marleborough; Lincoln a 19th Century Cincinnatus who took on the burden of his republic unwillingly but forcefully and so many others.

Today's Sun Times article by Abdon Pallasch http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/78676,CST-NWS-quigley01.article announced the Master Quigley's monthly installment of his Revolution, backed not by Louis XVI but another Royalist - Rep. Jesse Jackson - who shares Quigley's 'authentic' reform charcteristics. However, Quigley reminds me of no other public servant, living or dead, but a character by Charles Dickens and said to have been based upon Hans Christian Anderson - Uriah Heep. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uriah_Heep_(David_Copperfield)

SEIU still smarting from the collapse of World War III that they expected Dennis Gannon to fight for them, now plans to flank Daley ( like old Guderian himself) with pulling guard Quigley, to kick-out crashing end Daley and clear the way for Kid Staples. Yep, some campaign season - Mount Carmel versus Spaulding School for Crippled Children.

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