The Illinois Congressional Pork Report

by Cal Skinner

Taxpayers for Common Sense have totaled up the congressional earmarks in the budget bill being voted on this week.

I was reminded of that when I read an editorial cartoon sent to me by my Joplin, Missouri, brother-in-law. It was in the Saganaw News.

Scene: Husband and wife sitting at the breakfast table.

Husband: “Sez here they arrested a D.C. Madam for running a house of ill repute...”

Wife: “They arrested Polisi?”

Below is the list of who got what in this year's budget, which is due to be passed only about six months after the beginning of the fiscal year. They are listed in descending order from highest to lowest dollar amount of pork projects.

• Ray LaHood, 23 earmarks totaling $8,774,250

• Rahm Emanuel, 10 earmarks totaling $6,523,000

• Jerry Costello, 12 earmarks totaling $5,425,175

• Dan Lipinski, 12 projects totaling $4,451,172

• Melissa Bean, 10 earmarks totaling $3,687,314 (one in McHenry County)

• Bill Foster, 12 earmarks totaling $3,095,000

• Danny Davis, 10 earmarks totaling $3,066,014

• Tim Johnson, 8 earmarks totaling $2,806,100

• Jesse Jackson, Jr., 15 earmarks totaling $2,783,500

• Peter Roskam, 12 earmarks totaling $2,655,330

• John Shimkus, 13 earmarks totaling $2,421,750

• Bobby Rush, 8 earmarks totaling $2,073,375

• Don Manzullo, 6 earmarks totaling $2,070,500 (one in McHenry County)

• Phil Hare, 7 earmarks totaling $2,031,000

• Jan Schakowsky, 8 earmarks totaling $1,644,000

• Luis Gutierrez, 2 earmarks totaling $760,000

• Jerry Weller, 7 earmarks totaling $1,243,250

$47.8 million in total.

Eschewing pork were Republicans Judy Biggert and Mark Kirk.

Three retired members, Rahm Emanuel, Ray LaHood and Jerry Weller get credit for projects anyway.

Newly elected Congress folks Debbie Halvorson and Aaron Shock were not listed.

Previous Illinois pork reports on McHenry County Blog:

2-28-9 Illinois Pork in the Commerce, Justice and Science Budgets

3-1-9 Illinois Defense Department Pork

3-2-9 Homeland Security Pork in Illinois

3-2-9 Return of Planetarium Pork

3-3-9 Ray LaHood Tucks $90,000 Bandstand Renovation in Congressional Budget

3-3-9 Pork Where You Might Expect It – in the Agriculture Budget

3-4-9 Illinois Earmarks for Interior, Environment Bills

3-5-9 Illinois Comes Out on Short End of Military Pork

3-6-9 Illinois Transportation and Housing and Urban Development Congressional Earmarks – Part 1

3-7-9 Illinois Transportation and Housing and Urban Development Congressional Earmarks – Part 2 - Dick Durbin's

3-8-9 Illinois Transportation and Housing and Urban Development Congressional Earmarks – Part 3

3-9-9 Illinois Transportation and Housing and Urban Development Congressional Earmarks – Part 4

3-10-9 Illinois Corps of Engineers Pork

Tomorrow at McHenry County Blog the bacon our United States Senators brought home.
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Bill Foster, salaries, and food banks plus Sunday Shorts

Kane County Chronicle: Foster to donate raise to food bank

Bill Foster (D-Emanuel Illinois 14th) donating his cost-of-living increase to Northern Illinois Food Bank and co-sponsoring legislation to prevent the cost-of-living adjustment from going into effect for members of Congress in 2010.

A very very close friend just laid off from a major Bank, so I'd rather Foster keep the COLA and work overtime (no need to fly home on weekends: stay in your DC office) figuring out what Banks are doing with our TARP funds and just skip the symbolic stuff.

More... A lot of people are worried about their jobs even if they’re employed. Small business owners are terrified because banks have told them their credit will be taken away. Normally, all I could do was sympathize. Now as a member of Congress and the [financial] committee, I can do something.”

Ok, go do something real in the Finance Committee about Banks, not the food banks you manipulate for an image like some other fellow Democrats fond of Human Shields.

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More posts throughout the day:
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"A lot of people were pissed" with how the Burris situation was handled, said a Democratic source involved in the discussions.

Sources speaking without attribution to Politico.

Failing to speak for the record the real mistake. Congress has failed America more than any other institution the past years. Not speaking forthrightly for the record so often the warning sign Congress is broken. Politico shouldn't let them get away with it. Your pissed Senator? What'cha (retaining the informality of being pissed here) you going to do about it? Tell voters with attribution. Heck, we're all pissed, and it's with you who ever you are!

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Foster's Playground

Foster's bickering ad. This from a guy who knocks our Iraqi allies for having 1,200 year long civil war and failing a political solution.

I just can't get an image out of my mind of Foster on the totlot getting rolled by those tough kids from south of the tracks: Jackson, Rush, and Lipinski over the Wall Street bail out.

So much for bickering, those mean kids play with baseball bats. Maybe time to head back for the Lab Mr. Foster.



xp Bill Baar's West Side

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Bill Foster on Ethanol (What's he say on imported ethanol?)

Msg to Foster Staff: If Foster has a position on that tariff on Brazial Ethanol Durbin and Obama have supported, please send it to me and I will publish. From his site on ethanol,

There are both opportunities and dangers in biofuels. Here are two examples that indicate how the 14th District is dependent on the technological and business sense in Congress:

1. Over-Subsidization of Corn-to-Ethanol Plants. The large subsidies for corn-based ethanol plants is causing large numbers of them continue to be built even thought they are known to be non-competitive in the long term. To understand how serious the situation is, consider that by some estimates, when all of the planned corn-to-ethanol plant capacity is built, Iowa will become a net importer of corn. Those most likely to be hurt when the ethanol "bubble" bursts are not the large agribusiness and large-scale producers of ethanol, but the small groups of independent farmers who have banded together to invest in small scale corn-to-ethanol operations.

2. Which Biofuel Should Congress Invest in? It is far from clear that ethanol is the best long term bio-energy fuel. Other bio-fuels (such as butanol or 2,5-Dimethyl Furan) get more miles per gallon than ethanol and they do not corrode piping and storage tanks. However, the House of Representatives recently passed legislation providing money to upgrade piping and storage to avoid the corrosion problems of ethanol. If the final best choice for biofuels is not ethanol but some less corrosive fuel, then much of this money will have been misspent. As always, good business judgment is essential.

Right now I'd say Durbin and Obama want Congress invested in ADM and that convinces me it would be best to get Congress out of the investment business all together and leave this one open for market solutions. Right now... I'm betting on much more misspending.

xp Bill Baar's West Side

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Bill Foster: A Public Document for Offical Business

Bill Foster must think we in the sticks need big glossy pics to answer the questions on the small card attached to this Public Document for Official Business at the taxpayer's expense.

Gosh darn but we ain't that stupid.






xp Bill Baar's West Side

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Elignite: Bill Foster abusing the Frank?

Take a look. Elignite writes,

This mailing from 14th district Congressman Bill Foster’s office, which arrived last week, is indistinguishable from a campaign mailing. From a new congressman who promises “real changes” it’s disappointing to see this flagrant abuse of the frank, the congressional privilege of sending postage-free mail. As you can see in the lower picture, “This mailing was prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense.” I can’t recall seeing a newsletter from a congressman that was so full of self promotion, pandering and so indistinguishable from a campaign mailing.

With Republicans like Julie Brady and Gabriela Wyatt active in Kane County it's a shame we don't have one of these fine women leading the charge on Foster.

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Bill Foster befuddled by Gas Prices

Foster quoted from Kane County Chronicle's Foster, Durbin cry foul over gas prices

The lawmakers said they supported stepping up efforts in Congress and by the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether fuel suppliers are “gouging” customers or colluding to fix prices artificially high.

Foster noted that while crude oil – the raw material needed to create gasoline, diesel and other forms of fuel – costs more than ever, the companies that manufacture the fuel are reporting record profits.

“As a businessman, this mystifies me,” Foster said.

He said this mystery furthers his suspicion that the marketplace for petroleum and its byproducts is not functioning.

Restore the market, he said, and prices should drop.

Foster should start demystifying the market by checking Durbin's Website for the joint letter signed by Durbin and Obama protesting cheap ethanol from Brazil. Then Foster should have paid attention to Conoco Phillips's VP John Lowe as quoted by Miss Kelly blog,

The executive vp of Conoco Phillips John Lowe advanced some novel (sic) ideas for Congress to consider in addition to lifting the ban on drilling, like how about adopting a balanced energy policy? Do more to encourage alternative energy sources (offshore wind farms, for example), promote energy conservation, cut regulations that are preventing the construction of refineries -- and, oh yes, remove the tariff on ethanol. Congress slapped a 54 cents-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol, thus blocking the import of low price ethanol from Brazil that would help lower gas prices for America’s beleaguered drivers. Dropping the tariff is one action that could provide some near-term relief.

To end this courageous presentation by the energy companies, ConocoPhillips’ Lowe calmly concluded, "U.S. oil companies should be viewed not as scapegoats, but as assets. We must work together to find a real solution."

American industry as an asset for the American People a notion beyond Scientist and Businessman Foster.

He's just another Illinois Rezko-Democrat milking the politics while the citzens of Illinois get milked for the ethanol lobby.

Ken Silverstein back in Harpers in 2006, Barack Obama Inc.:
The birth of a Washington machine

And indeed Obama has delivered for his constituents—for social activists, but also for business groups whose demands are invariably more costly. Although this is not the place to review the full history of ethanol, it’s beyond dispute that it survives only because members of Congress from farm states, whether liberal or conservative, have for decades managed to win billions of dollars in federal subsidies to underwrite its production. It is not, of course, family farmers who primarily benefit from the program but rather the agribusiness giants such as Illinois-based Aventine Renewable Energy and Archer Daniels Midland (for which ethanol accounts for just 5 percent of its sales but an estimated 23 percent of its profits). Ethanol production, as Tad Patzek of UC Berkeley’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering wrote in a report this year, is based on “the massive transfer of money from the collective pocket of the U.S. taxpayers to the transnational agricultural cartel.”

That should clear the mystry for you Bill. If Congress will only restore the market prices will drop.

Update: In response to anon's comment, I won't be able to cast a protest vote either: Three Green Party candidates removed from ballot

Patrick Kelly, Illinois Green Party media committee chairman, said: "We've come to expect this type of thing from the Democrats who, despite their names, are out to end democracy in Illinois. They'll never stop until they can win every election without competition, apparently."

Candidates remaining on the ballot for the districts in question are Democratic incumbent Melissa Bean and Republican challenger Steve Greenberg in the 8th; Republican incumbent Mark Kirk and Democratic challenger Dan Seals in the 10th; and Democratic incumbent Bill Foster and GOP challenger Jim Oberweis in the 14th.

I remember George Meany on Face the Nation saying this: Labor Decides to Mugwump It,

In a tone as matter-of-fact as if he were discussing the pros and cons of a pipe fitting, the onetime plumber said he doubted that "McGovern is good material. We don't think he would be in the best interest of labor. My interests would be if we could find some way to defeat both of them." He reminisced about the perennial Socialist candidate for the presidency who died in 1968: "If only Norman Thomas were alive today."

I feel like Mugwumping a Foster Oberweis contest too but I just know some good people who risked it all so I could vote.

Stay tuned... I'll commit later.



xp Bill Baar's West Side

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Unconventional Wisdom - Scott Harper's 13th Congressional Strategy

[Cross-posted at WurfWhile.com]

It is a political campaign maxim, particularly for non-incumbents, that campaigns must jealously focus on their own race to win - and that any 'distraction' from their campaign comes at great or even unbearable cost. While examples may exist, how often have you heard of an underdog congressional campaign taking their volunteers to canvass for a neighboring congressional candidate? Perhaps more uncommon, how often have you heard of a congressional candidate taking their volunteers out of state to canvass for a presidential candidate in a party primary? It may be unconventional strategy, but 13th Congressional District Democrat Scott Harper has taken campaign volunteers to support neighboring 14th District Congressman Bill Foster in his historic win, and just last weekend was canvassing for Barack Obama in Lafayette, Indiana with his volunteers.

Scott Harper may be in a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) "targeted race," indicating that the party thinks he has a real chance of winning, but under traditional campaign standards one has to ask - is what he doing lunacy?

While not without risk, the unique circumstances Scott Harper's campaign finds themselves in may justify this unique strategy. Consider:

- No congressional Democrat had won a seat in DuPage County for decades, until Bill Foster's congressional win a couple months ago;

- Only small parts of DuPage have had any Democratic state-level representation in recent memory - and with the exception of State Senator Don Harmon, the current elected officials (State Senator Linda Holmes and State Representative Paul Froehlich) have served Democrats under two years; and

- "Serious" DuPage Democratic challenges at the federal and state-level have been very few and far between until two years ago.

Scott Harper has the burden of proving viability in a way that few candidates do, in a district that only became majority Democratic this year. One way to "prove" viability is to show that candidates like Congressman Bill Foster can win - and to support them during an 'off-time' special election in the hopes of support (perhaps from "maxed out" donors among others) during the general election.

A second issue for the Harper Campaign is how to motivate the record number of Democrats voting in DuPage (more than half of the 13th District) to continue voting Democratic down ballot in the general election. By aligning himself with Illinois' U.S. Senator and Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama, Scott Harper hopes to gain many of those Democratic votes from a popular senator who won DuPage with 64% of the vote in 2004.

DuPage represented almost 54% of 13th Congressional District votes in 2006 (109,411 votes) when Democrat Joe Shannon ran against GOP Congresswoman Judy Biggert. If Scott beats Congresswoman Biggert in relatively conservative DuPage, even by a percent or two, it's unlikely that she will win. Shannon got about 40% in both DuPage and suburban Cook County, and his stronghold was in Will County, the second highest vote total (64,247 or almost 32%) where he got over 45% of the vote. Suburban Cook voters cast 29,623 votes in the election (under 15%). Scott Harper is a different candidate than Joe Shannon, but Scott already has more money than Joe did, Harper runs in a DuPage County that has gone Democratic for the first time in memory, and Scott Harper has a bigger, more professional organization than Joe Shannon, who lacked permanent management, field and fundraising staff. Joe Shannon worked very hard, but his effort was part-time. While allowances might be made for Joe Shannon being a more conservative candidate than Scott Harper, Shannon's numbers based on very limited resources are best viewed as a baseline for Harper's full-time effort.

If Scott Harper looks like the best chance Democrats have had in a long time to capture the 13th Congressional seat, that doesn't mean it will be easy. That's what makes Harper's gambit to help his race by helping others so intriguing. Will Scott Harper compensate for limited/new Democratic Party infrastructure by strategically leveraging goodwill gained in two other ongoing campaigns? It's a counterintuitive approach that may make the difference in the 13th District race.

One knowledgeable campaign source summarized Scott Harper's strategy this way,

"Not only does Scott support both Bill Foster and Barack Obama but there's also an advantage for us when and if they both do well. People saw Bill Foster's victory as evidence that the collar counties are changing and that we can win back these seats. If a Democrat can take Former Speaker Hastert's seat in a worse Democratic performing district than ours, then surely Scott can win as well. And as for Senator Obama, Scott absolutely backs him but also understands that having him on the ticket will greatly help us as well.
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"[T]hough we're mostly focused on Scott, we understand the value of being team players."

The Scott Harper Campaign "team player" strategy may be unconventional, but the timing may be right. We'll know in November.

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Will the 18th District go Democratic like the 14th?

The answer: Maybe. But if it does, it won't be for the same reasons.

For those Peorians who don't follow state politics (thanks in no small part to the local media's general disinterest in the subject) were was some huge news Saturday. Democrat Bill Foster, a political unknown, defeated millionaire GOP foe Jim Oberweis in a special election to replace Dennis Hastert as Congressman from the 14th District.

Foster will serve the remainder of Hastert's term, and will have to face re-election in the November general election. His foe then will likely be Oberweis again. Which, in my opinion, is good news for Foster.

Consider the implications o the win. The far-west suburban district has been considered a Republican stronghold. But changing demographics and a general dissatisfaction with the GOP has tilted the district more Democratic.

There's speculation that this might mean trouble for another Congressional district that's traditionally been a sure win for the GOP -- the 18th District. After all, incumbent Congressman Ray LaHood is retiring.

My advice to the Dems is to not get cocky. A lot of factors played out in the 14th that don't affect the 18th.

First, I doubt that 18th's demographics have changed all that much since last election. Maybe there's some data bearing this out. There's been a lot of overall growth in that district as working class folks from Chicago are moving in. Not so much here in central Illinois.

Second, Aaron Schock is no Jim Oberweis. Love him or hate him, Schock has proven himself capable of winning elections. Oberweis has proven nothing, except that voters don't like him. The millionaire dairyman has been able to buy his way past the primaries a couple of times, but in the end has been rejected by voters four times in the last six years.

For reasons I have expressed before, I don't think Schock is as strong as his supporters think he is. And I also do not think opponent Colleen Callahan is a weak candidate in the least. And I agree that if Barack Obama heads the ticket, Callahan is is really good shape in November.

The importance of Foster's victory in the 14th is that it's red meat to the troops. The last Democrat who came close to winning was G. Douglas Stephens back when he first ran against Bob Michael. And he did it with the support of rank-and-file Democrats who felt tossed to the side of the road by the economy. They didn't get a lot of help from the national party, and I would advise them to not count on any help this time around, either.

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U.S. Rep. James Oberweis, R-Ill.

There. I wrote it. But he’d better not get too used to the title, because he’s going to have one heck of a fight immediately ahead of him in order to keep it.

It would appear that after four campaigns costing the Chicago-area investment manager turned dairy owner and ice cream parlor entrepreneur more than $10 million of his own money, James Oberweis will finally get a political office to call his own.

My gut feeling says that Illinois’ 14th congressional district is so in-bred Republican (particularly in the rural parts that comprise its far west end) that Oberweis will win Saturday’s special election to complete the remainder of the term to which retiring Rep. J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., (formerly U.S. House speaker) was elected in 2006.

However, that term only runs through the rest of this year. All Oberweis is going to get is the right to be in the minority party of Congress at a time when the mood of the country as a whole is swinging against them.

So it shouldn’t be considered a major victory for Oberweis (or a defeat for Democratic party challenger Bill Foster) as much as just another step in their desire to have real political influence.

No matter what happens Saturday, Foster and Oberweis remain the Democrat and Republican nominees in the Nov. 4 election to win a two-year term of their own, beginning in January 2009.

Some political observers believe Foster has a chance to actually win the seat, saying they think that social and political trends that will favor Democratic candidates across the United States in general will also apply to this district.

They think the lack of Denny Hastert (an extremely popular local figure who was perceived as never having forgotten where he came from, no matter how high up the political ladder he climbed) will cause people to look at the actual personalities on the ballot, rather than focus attention on the political parties to which they are affiliated.

I’m skeptical that will happen for Saturday’s special election, although it could very well happen come November.

Foster could easily lose on Saturday, but then win big in the General Election – thereby getting himself a full two-year term of his own, while Oberweis will merely get to finish off the crumbs left over from Hastert’s term and will gain a “political loser” reputation – as if losses for the U.S. Senate and Illinois governor hadn’t already given him that rep.

If there had been more than one month of time passing between when Oberweis and Foster won their nominations and the actual special election, then maybe Foster would have had more of a chance to exploit the “national mood,” so-to-speak.

But the lack of time, combined with the fact that many people who live in that district are Republicans because they perceive the political party as the mechanism that allows them to prevent Democratic Chicago from overwhelming their interests, means many local voters will merely vote for the GOP, just like they always have.

Foster, if he really wants to win, should focus his attention on keeping the momentum of his campaign from being lost. Even with Oberweis spending the spring and summer months in Washington, there won’t be much time for him to accomplish anything of significance. He is not going to be the standard issue incumbent in the November election.

Oberweis could easily get tied into the Republican caucus and be hit with all the mistakes they inevitably will make this year. He could be weakened just enough that Foster could beat up on him for issues we don’t even know about yet.

So the political junkie in me is focusing my attention on that election, in large part because it is the only one going Saturday in Illinois (Sorry, I just can’t get excited about the Wyoming presidential primary).

It really wouldn’t be much of a loss for Foster not to win on Saturday. Even if I turn out to be wrong and the headline on this commentary makes me look foolish by day’s end, all Foster would really get to be is the member of the majority party with the least amount of seniority.

In one respect, it will be good to see this special election cycle come and go. I am tired of all the nasty broadcast ad campaigning that has been taking place. Both of these candidates are exaggerating their opponents’ resumes in an attempt to unfairly demonize them.

Perhaps it is because neither one of them really has anything worth bragging about. I know for a fact that I would have a hard time choosing whom to vote for, if I lived in that district (ironically enough, my step-brother recently moved into the far east end of the Illinois 14th congressional, but not in time to register to be able to vote Saturday).

Oberweis is going to have no problem falling in line with the segment of Congress that is more than willing to pander to social conservative elements that want to blast the immigration issue out of context – twisting it into something that can be used to demonize people so as to get votes.

Oberweis is the candidate who in past bids for the U.S. Senate tried to plant the image in the heads of Illinois voters of massive sports stadiums filled with illegal immigrants. Even in his current campaign for the U.S. House, he has kept up the partisan rhetoric.

I lost count of how many times he tried to imply (both in television campaign ads and during personal appearances) that Foster is a liberal freak who wants to raise peoples’ taxes so that there will be more money to pay for social services for people that Oberweis would prefer to think do not belong in this country at all.

What is sad is that Foster really is a guy who is more than willing to throw his own digs at Oberweis on the immigration issue.

We got to re-hear the charge from past campaigns that Oberweis hired people without proper immigration papers to work at his ice cream parlors (he actually hired companies to staff one of his parlors, and they hired the people without “green cards.”) We also got to hear that Oberweis agrees with President Bush “on almost everything,” even though the one major area they do disagree on is immigration.

Bush actually had the reasonable approach, while Oberweis wants to play politics with people, particularly those who have come to the United States from various Latin American countries.

Foster doesn’t want to clarify it because it might imply he sides with the people affected by immigration cases – a viewpoint he thinks would cost him votes.

As much as Oberweis’ campaign activity in elections past and present offends me, it is not like there is really anything about Foster that makes him a viable alternative. While the Chicago Sun-Times used that as an excuse to begrudgingly give Oberweis their endorsement, I don’t know if I could have followed suit.

-30-

Originally posted at http://www.chicagoargus.blogspot.com/

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Foster's decade over Iraqi Kurdistan

From Foster's current position on Iraq,

The deep religious conflicts in Iraq have led many to believe that the most promising strategy for the Iraqis is to partition their country into separate religious and tribal enclaves. Should the Iraqis embrace this strategy of separating the religious groups, the U.S. could play a supportive role - much as the American lead NATO effort did successfully in Bosnia, or the "no-fly zone" that protected the Kurds for the decade [Baar's emphasis] between Gulf Wars . Under all circumstances, American ground forces must begin the process of coming home as soon as possible.

Except for the Air Force over Kurdistan I guess, but go ahead and read the full position though, and compare it with this exchange between Laesch and Foster during the election (HT Illinois Review)

"'John, you believe wrong. I am fully committed to getting our troops out of Iraq, and I am fully committed to using the power of the purse intelligently to accomplish it. And the way you do it is to put a bill on President Bush's desk, the next time a supplemental comes through, would have explicit, rifle-shot language, that says, 'these, this money is not to be used for ongoing combat operations, patrolling the street of Iraq, getting our kids blown up, day in and day out.' You can attach very specific language to an appropriations bill, and we should do it. And we certainly, that will be what I vote for, and I will support, when I am in Congress four months from now.' [1]

[1] Kane County Democrat Forum, October 23, 2007. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoFaP_iUugE

Compare the positions, then and now, and I think you'll find Foster, as Carl Davidson wrote of Barack O'Bomb 'em: a triangulator par excellence.

Colonel Morgenthaler wrote,

The men who did terrible things to the Kuwaitis, especially the Kuwaiti women are very similar to the men we are fighting. As people get upset about Abu Ghraib, one thing that should never be forgotten: these are men who have murdered Americans and would continue to murder Americans if given the opportunity.

I'm not convinced the men abused at Abu Ghraib were terrorists, but I'm convinced we fight a foe in Iraq who will continue to murder Americans if given the opportunity.

Bill Poscoe's quoted over at IR condemning the early Foster position for raising the white flag just as General Petraeus's new strategy is working.

Triangulation is worse than raising the white flag though. If the war is the wrong stratgy, the only sane solution is get out now. That's an honorable stand.

But if Morgenthaler right, and we face a murderous foe committed to our destruction, than too triangulate as Foster does now, is not worthy of an America at war. It plays politics about an enemy we can't redeploy from to safety behind our shores..

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Daily Herald: Fight still left in Laesch

Daily Herald with this and then Downtowner over at PSB on Laesch's press conference yesterday. From the Herald,

Among those encouraging Laesch to keep fighting was state Sen. Mike Noland. The Elgin Democrat, who referred to Laesch as "Cinderella Man" and compared him to presidential hopeful Barack Obama, lost two state legislative races by close margins before finally winning in 2006.

"It's so close, we have to do it," Noland said. "The fight goes on. No matter what the result, young man, you have an extremely bright future."

All the energy and money devoted to Pera running in the southwest side as pro-abortion and pro-embryonic stem cell research, when you could have betted on running Laesch against Oberweis in Elgin and Aurora on immigration.

A lot of progressives underestimated their own lured by a guy with money and slim experience. Read Lisa Smith: Group questions Foster's experience

Highlighting a Foster campaign mailer describing how Foster was "serving on Murphy's congressional staff" before deciding to run for office himself, the Washington-based Majority Accountability Project claimed that House payroll records don't list Foster's name anywhere on Murphy's staff. Foster's news release clarified that Foster "was an unpaid staffer after Murphy's election." But working for free for a member of Congress could be considered a violation of House ethics rules, Majority Accountability Project pointed out Friday.

Laesch may have some quirks, but compared to Oberweis's own quirks; that'll be a wash. Foster's puffing will be tougher to shake.

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Mark Pera's campaign

Considering the energy posting for Pera here and here, you have to wonder if it was time really misspent due to a badly flawed understanding of the issues and voters in Illinois's 3rd district.

Take a look at some of the postings on why Pera's campaign made so much sense and you really have to wonder if Pera's supporters aren't way out-of-touch.

Compare their disconnect in the third with many of these same folk's abandonment of John Laesch in the 14th --a guy who I think would stand a chance against a widely disliked Oberweis especially with Obama at the top of the ticket in November-- and you really have to wonder about their political horse-sense.

The silence on Pera, or worse: WestsideGirl in Kos, doesn't auger well for progressivism.

So seduced by a millionaire's money as the path to power, they'll dump their political principles. That McCain doing just the opposite and winning should tell us something about 2008.

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DownTowner: IL-14 The Losing Strategy

DownTowner writs an excellant history of Bill Foster and his campaign in IL-14.

Prior to leaving his job at Fermilab in disgust over lost federal funding in 2006 for the project he managed, multimillionaire Foster's FEC record of donations to Dem candidates totaled two, one in 2000 to fellow physicist Rush Holt and one in 2004 to Obama. There is no record of multi-millionaire Foster contributing a single dollar to any local Dem organization or candidate, and he was at that time wholly unknown to any local Dem organization. Foster's campaign manager has confirmed that prior to his 2006-07 year-long sojourn in DC, he was just not political.

Upon leaving his job at Fermilab and moving to DC, Foster stated his distress with the federal funding situation at Fermilab, noting as he did that since Dennis Hastert would shortly no longer be the Speaker, he would no longer be in a position to defend Fermilab funding. Foster also stated that his intent in moving to DC was to seek a non-partisan job on Capital Hill and that upon his discovery that non-partisan is not an option there, he chose the Dems. A perusal of the FEC and statewide records will reveal that his family in Wisconsin, in stark contrast to Foster himself, have a history of donating early and often to a wide variety of Dem candidates, so this choice should be unsurprising.

While in DC he attended a Rahm Emmanuel DCCC Red to Blue fundraiser, decided to work for the Patrick Murphy campaign in Pennsylvania, and spent six weeks doing that.

Gives you a taste of Foster but please go over and read the whole post.

Foster's grated me from the get go not because of his politics, but because of his phoniness. Read all of Downstate's post and you see Foster's whole phoney story.

The Democrats dilemma is they believe they can't run a Laesch-style progressive in Il-14 CD and other places, but they make it impossible for Lieberman-style Democrats to find a home in the party.

So Illinois Democrats are stuck with a party of progressives and phonies. Worse, the phonies have all the money. So it's no wonder besides being the most Liberal State, we also seem the most corrupt.

I think that's what happens when progressive roll over for the phonies.

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Bill Foster's America Firster mailer

Foster's latest. He's gone America First.

Also, he says on the third page he quit Fermi Lab to do something about Bush's War and that doesn't square with the lengthy four page resignation letter he wrote about the resignation.

...I also realize that my voice will not be heard, since after years of insisting that unpleasant technical realities be respected in strategic planning in HEP, I find myself branded as a troublemaker with an axe to grind.

No mention of Bush's War in that letter.

Now he's ready to walk from our Iraqi allies. Democrats weren't always so quick to abandon friends. Even when the majority of Americans weren't always with Democrats.

Far from it, while Lindbergh was talking America First (and even Lindbergh dropped the America First talk after we were in it, and fought like heck over FDR's objections to get in it); FDR's Harry Hopkins said this to an ally few Americans were ready to stand with at the time,

Few dramatists could match the poignant scene when Britain stood alone against the Nazi power that dominated a conquered or fawningly neutral Europe. Roosevelt sent his envoy Harry Hopkins to Churchill. At dinner Hopkins quoted from the Book of Ruth: "Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people and their God my God," softly adding, "Even to the end." --From Meachem Franklin and Winston

Even to the end... no more Democrats like that. The world (and history) will note that from now on.

The mailer,

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Il-14th: Bill Foster in a bow tie

The latest mailer with Foster trying to fill Paul Simon's shoes.

Mighty ones to fill too and I wish Foster had remembered Simon for his courage during Rwanda per wikipedia rather than the green-eye-shade common sense.

I'm sure History will honor Simon's courage more than pay go during what was otherwise a shameful instance of inaction by the United States,

...he was an outspoken critic of President Bill Clinton's response to the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Simon believed America should have acted faster, and Clinton later said his belated response was the biggest mistake of his presidency.[10] He is, together with Jim Jeffords, credited by Canadian Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire, Force Commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) from 1993 to 1994, for actively lobbying the U.S. administration into mounting a humanitarian mission to Rwanda during the genocide. According to Dallaire's book Shake Hands with the Devil, he "owe[s] a great debt of gratitude" to both senators.

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Il-14th: Bill Foster video

He'll knock you out cold watching this. The stuff over at Prairie State Blue about it much more interesting.

Ok, I want to hear how he lost the budget battle at Fermi lab for billions for a proton driver on top of the $10 billion for the International Linear Collider that left him...branded as a troublemaker with an axe to grind...

A bloody story about geeks fighting over billions in Federal Research dollars has to be more fun than this. Science not all about the noble pursuit of truth when grant funding at stake.

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Fast Track International Linear Collider: "Give me $10B or give me death"

Bill Foster's resignation letter from Fermi Lab's Proton Drive Project after having lost the funding wars to the International Linear Collider's tactics of Give me $10 billion or give me death

Interesting reading for those who think being a Scientist and Businessman is all nerdy stuff.

It's a link to a pdf.

...in the likely occurrence that we do not immediately get $10B of federal and international funds to build the ILC, congress may tire of funding R&D for a project with an uncertain time scale, and the HEP budget at both US universities and labs will collapse. (By this time, of course, Rep. Hastert will have retired as Speaker of the House and we will no longer have him to defend our budget….)

Guess Foster's going to pick up Hastert's fight. Just please don't try and build that tunnel proposed in the 90s through my aquifer again.

Foster may also want to explain this admission with the flood of commercials about ending the bickering in Congress,

It has been a great disappointment to me that I have been unable to convince DOE to agree that the Proton Driver Project is a reasonable option to preserve. But I also realize that my voice will not be heard, since after years of insisting that unpleasant technical realities be respected in strategic planning in HEP, I find myself branded as a troublemaker with an axe to grind. Since the starting points for progress must be an acknowledgement by the ILC planners that a realistic ILC schedule is well into the future, and that a U.S. system test is essential, future progress may in fact be quicker if I am not in the room. In any case, I have no desire to continue a debate in which one side feels free to ignore demonstrable facts.

They don't grind axes in Congress. It's the silent stab in the back. I'm not sure this Professor is ready.

Be a bit of a trouble maker --but never admit it 'cause people will know if you're good-- buy the opposition a drink, smile, and never ever give up.

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Bill Foster files for the special in IL-14

Bill Foster will file 1,832 signatures this morning for the special election in IL-14. They like to point out that's after a week with two ice storms and 8 inches of snow. I like to point out that it's a perfectly sufficient number to avoid a challenge.

I think they needed 870 or so, so 1,832 pads their total nicely and they were still able to do other stuff the past week.

I was out helping the Foster campaign in IL-14 yesterday. I was struck by a few things.

Something I had wondered about with the Foster campaign early on was whether or not they would be able to expand their base and their volunteer pool sufficiently. As I read through their volunteer board on the wall of the office yesterday, I really got it that they are doing the right things to diversify their support. I suspected they were doing all the right things before and I had no reason to think otherwise, but yesterday seriously cemented it in my brain.

Like every campaign should, they started out building upon Bill's personal and professional relationships for financial and volunteer support. One of the things that I look for in candidates is whether or not the candidate's former colleagues like and respect him or her enough to invest time and money in the campaign. Bill certainly passed that test with flying colors! How many candidates can you think of who have world class scientists (and their families) writing checks AND pounding the pavement for them?!

The Foster Scientific Brigade have continued to be out in full effect for Bill and the campaign has managed to recruit many new, enthusiastic supporters form very diverse communities! I've met college kids from Aurora University and Northern Illinois University. I saw several of the Fox Valley Forge strikers and their families. Teachers from Batavia, Geneva, St. Charles and Elgin. Nurses from DeKalb, Aurora, and Oswego. At least two Kane County Board members and several other elected officials and their families. And, perhaps most importantly, many people who I know from firsthand experience who have the ability to influence large chunks of the voting bloc.

Couple this with the fact that Bill has raised the most money of any Democratic or Republican candidate (aside from his personal contribution) and has picked up some very impressive endorsements (AFSCME Council 31, Planned Parenthood, Senator Dick Durbin, and 19 Nobel Laureates among them!) and things are looking pretty good for the Foster campaign. I'm pretty happy with their progress thus far.

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Throwing Laesch under the bus

A comment by Carl Nyberg over at Prairie State Blue on Planned Parenthood's endorsement of Foster in the primary.

A significant number of key people have decided they can't back Laesch. In fact, some of them have decided they will oppose Laesch no matter what.

I feel like these judgments have been rendered unfairly in most cases.

I also think that the attacks on Laesch are unfair enough that it will create a real problem for Foster.

Foster probably should do something to de-escalate the nastiness, especially the unfair attacks on Laesch.

If Laesch is denied the nomination by b/c people perceived that key players won't work with Laesch, Laesch's supporters have a certain incentive to jam Foster on that very point.

Laesch not my kind of Democrat. He's the now pervasive kind of Democrat who's taken over, and made it impossible for Lieberman style Liberals to find a home there.

But Laesch has been a tireless campaigner for Progressivism in Il-14 --as Progressivisms now become-- and it seems he deserves a little better.

He's your party Democrats, with a program more consistent with where the party's been the past six years, than the candidate those key people want to field in Il-6.

Maybe the Lieberman Dem's don't belong in the party, and Lieberman Liberals should leave it to the Laeschites, but those muddling key people, who's principles sway with the winds of polls, seem the least appealing of all. I hope Laesch supporters do, as Carl wrote, jam Foster on that point.

xp Bill Baar's West Side

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