While visiting downtown Wheaton over the weekend, I saw this piece of art(?) at the La Spiaza cafe:
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
The already thunderous talk is only going to grow as this story gets out there.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...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.
"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.
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.
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 CandidateChicago--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.
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.”
CAFTA,Not exactly what you might expect from a liberal MoveOn candidate.
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.
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.
15 paragraphs into the story, it does manage to quote Roger Hunt, the law’s sponsor.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.xp at Bill Baar's West Side Read more...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
If there is opposition to the referendum, it’s hard to find on the internet. "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.
= = = = =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."
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.
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