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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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