Has the Governor Seen the Light?

UPDATE - Apparently the answer is 'Deal". Meeks is out.

Even on vacation, Rich Miller is on top of Illinois happenings. He just recently broke the story for his subscribers that there may be a deal between the Governor and Senator Meeks on the issue of education funding that would generate major new revenue for Illinois schools.

Without any inside knowledge to the discussions, I would think that the only viable potential source of a long-term revenue stream sufficient to generate those types of dollars would be the previously discussed privatization of the toll roads. This would allow the Governor to infuse sufficient dollars into the schools to stave off the Meeks bid without sacrificing his no tax increase pledge.

A question that remains in my mind though is what, if anything, is planned to address the issue of funding inequity between districts as well as the oft-discussed over-reliance on property taxes. Intelligent people have differed, and will continue to differ, on whether the schools need more money, but I would think that there is some consensus that the state needs to pick up its share of whatever monies are going into schools.

If local governments (eg. Cook County) are not somehow compelled to translate a massive new infusion of state money into some form of relief for property owners, there is still going to be a lot of work that needs to be done.

In any event, I commend Sen. Meeks for putting his words into action.

To read, or post, comments, visit Dome-icile.

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Immigration rallies' backlash, cont'd: English as America's national language

The backlash against the recent open borders rallies continues. Yesterday, the US Senate passed a provision authorizing English as America's "national language." Making English the nation's official language would've been better, but even as a national language, the legislation makes sense. It will be included, along with a similar provision, in the immigration legislation making its way through Congress.

Republican James Inhofe of Oklahoma brought the provision to the Senate floor.

The usual suspects, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Barack Obama, Patty Murray, Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Ted Kennedy, among others, voted against it.

But I want to focus on the comments made by Dick Durbin.

He's worried that warning signs in Spanish might be taken down.

From the Chicago Tribune, free registration may be required:

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), for example, said drowning deaths on the Potomac River, which flows through the nation's capital, had gone from more than a dozen in 2004 to none last year. The U.S. Park Service credited the decline, he said, to warning signs in Spanish and English after it noticed that many drowning victims were immigrants.

"So is making this political statement in the Inhofe amendment so important that we wouldn't want to provide safety for those using the Potomac River?" Durbin asked.

Inhofe responded that his bill would not prevent such signs from being printed in other languages in addition to English.

Whereas I'm glad there were no drowning deaths on the Potomac last year, I find it not at all surprising that Durbin framed the debate over the provision in a manner that a trial lawyer would. The trial lawyers are the ones who tell juries that not no matter what warning signs are put in place, they're never enough of them, they're never big enough, and they're not in enough languages.

Of course, over the last twenty years, the Democratic Party has become the party of the trial lawyers.

The photograph was taken at the Chicago May 1 immigration rally by Jake of Freedom Folks.

To comment, please visit Marathon Pundit.

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Eric Krol on Rep Bean and taxes

Krol has a column in today's Daily Herald but I can't find a link to it. He writes about a question to wchich U.S. Rep. Melissa Bean simply won't give a definitive answer: should Bush's tax cuts be made permanent.

Democrats need some moderates like Bean but it can't be an easy task running as one today. She should read fellow Democrat Brad Carson's response to
Michael Tomasky's Party in Search of a Notion. One of those notions being common interest.

The "common interest" is fine as a rhetorical ploy. Tomasky's "common good" won't be the Democrats' grand narrative, though. Because, its linguistic utility notwithstanding, the "common good" lacks any real substance and is incapable of doing the important work of prioritizing among (and adjudicating between) competing ideas. In the first 100 days of a new Democratic president, does the "common interest" dictate that we should first do universal health care, welfare reform, or gays in the military? We've been down that road before, and we know the baleful destination already.

The failure of Tomasky is that, like Lakoff, he seems to believe that the problems facing Democrats can be fixed with only a rhetorical shift. "If only we progressive had a Frank Luntz to wordsmith for us," they would seem to say. But the Democrats' problem is far deeper; it is not that they fumble for words, but rather that they have lost their voice.

Dodging questions on taxes no way to find that voice. Voters want and deserve to know your thoughts and criteria for prioritizing and adjudicating the questions before us.

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cigars, boots, hunting and golf

Holland released his audit of the Illinois Conservation Foundation yesterday. Daily Herald writes,

Auditors also found a variety of purchases made without proper documentation of why they were necessary. Among them: $191 worth of cigars, $469 in hunting clothes and related items, $72 in golf fees and a pair of boots worth $108.

It was outreach... gotta reach out.

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NOW Whacks Natarus for Sexist Slur

The Natonal Organization for Women's Chicago Chapter, one of their largest chapters in the country, whacked Alderman Burt Natarus this week for asking Chicago Sun-Times reporter Carol Marin whether she was a "pussy," which was pretty artfully done considering the paper won't allow the printing of the word. Here's what NOW board member Joe Hance said:

I don't know what's worse: Aldermen Stone and Natarus' cavalier regard for the Shakman decree, or the use, while rousing his fellow alderman, of unprintable vulgar references to the female reproductive tract. Surely the words "spineless" or "unmanly" convey the same message and pack the same punch.

If Stone and Natarus feel that strict guidelines on appointments and hiring impede good government, and if they want us to take their argument seriously, they'll have to come up with something better than schoolyard slurs that use female body parts as insults.

Sexism or corruption, which is worse? Good question, NOW. My guess is Alderman Burt Natarus would say "neither", since he recently joked about the Marin column at a packed public forum, before 350 people. Even with it staring you in the face from the newspaper, even with a federal prosecutor breathing down your neck, some folks just do not get it.

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The Clout list; among other things

Rich goes on vacation and I miss comments on what I think are the start of events that will upset Illinois politics for the rest of the year: The Clout List, State patronage, City patronage, and maybe the release of a report telling us officials looked the other way while confessions beat out of people.

Things will look a lot different for the powers-that-be in Illinois sooner rather than later because of all this?

Or will Illinois just shrug this all off?

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CDC Finally Agrees With Reagan AIDS/HIV Commission 18 Years Late

It was in 1988 that "The Report of the Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemic" was written and filed with President Ronald Reagan.

Its recommendations were basically written by Republican Illinois State Representative Penny Pullen, the legislative expert on the subject in the country, in my opinion, and nurse Kristine Gebbie, a liberal Public Health Department Director from both Washington and Oregon before becoming President Bill Clinton's AIDS czar. Perhaps Kristine's ability to compromise is one reason that she ended up on this hate poster.

Shepherd Smith, who founded Americans for a Sound AIDS/HIV Policy (not the guy on TV), and I worked with Penny far into the morning on what we called the "public protection" side of the issue.

Penny and Kristine met the next day and agreed upon most of the final recommendations.

One of the recommendations was "routine" HIV testing without pre-test counseling. The reasoning was that people deserved to know if they were HIV-infected, because that meant they were infectious.

Now, it is 18 years later and the CDC is finally getting around to implementing that sound recommendation.

I note that the son of another commissioner, Richard DeVos, is now a Republican candidate for governor in Michigan.

I worked with Penny on the issue of HIV through 1992. I became so disgusted with the Centers for Disease Control lack of action to stem the AIDS epidemic that I started calling the agency, "The Centers for the Spread of Disease."

Even when it spent almost a half million dollars investigating the spread of HIV in Illinois prisons--about as much as it spent on its condom TV ads--Penny had to pry the results out of Atlanta with a Freedom of Information request.

The results?

1/3 of 1% of Illinois state prisoners seroconverted within one year of incarceration. And, only those who had been in a local jail for at least three months were tested.

Doesn't sound like much, does it?

If one projects that rate onto the general Illinois population, for the purpose of perspective, it would have turned out that the total of HIV infections among Illinois residents in one year would have equaled the actual total over the life of the epidemic.

More at McHenry County Blog.

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Worth a Thousand Words

Comments about our two candidates for Governor got decidedly vicious late this afternoon, so this post exists no more. A few people had to ruin some good-natured fun for everybody else.

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Rockford's Stanley Campbell to Iran: "I apologize for my government."

Why does the Religous Left in America get such a thrill from Tyrants?

Here's what Rockford's Stanley Campbell is quoted saying in Iran per Peace Noodles at SoapBlog Chicago during his visit to Iran as a Peace Activist: I apologize for my government.

Do a search at the Soap on Jon Burge and it will come up blanks save my post today. Something's gone badly wrong with the left in Illinois and the US that they can be so indifferent to injustice in our own backyard and feel a need to travel to Iran and say sorry.

All in all it is difficult not to feel that pacifism, as it appears among a section of the intelligentsia, is secretly inspired by an admiration for power and successful cruelty.
--George Orwell

cross posted at Bill Baar's West Side

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Saint Hugo and Chicago's Jesse Jackson

I wonder if this connection explains how we got stuck with those voting machines.

From The Weekly Standard's Saint Hugo The Religious Left begins its embrace of Hugo Chávez , and a link here.

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Franking hath its privledges for Schock

From Wikipedia:

"The franking privilege is a perk which grants an elected official the right to send mail through the postal system for free, often simply by signing his or her name where the postage stamp would normally be placed.

"In theory, elected officials and the postal service are both paid for by the taxpayer. The postal service represents a fixed cost - that is, adding the official's mail to the existing mailstream does not change the postal system's total costs. The franking privilege allows elected officials to send official mail without creating accounting transactions that, at the total government level, will cancel each other out.

"In practice, the franking privilege is applied to more than just the official mail necessary for the conduct of the office. Franking is one of the largest advantages of incumbency, contributing to a very high reelection rate in the U.S. legislative branch.

In the United States, members of the House and Senate are allowed this privilege."

And so are members of the Illinois House of Representatives. Last residents of certain parts of Peoria -- but not all of them -- received mailers similar to this one from State Rep. Aaron Schock.(R-92nd District). This one ended up in the mailbox of a Central Bluff resident. Judging by the text alone, it's supposed to be an announcement of an innocent neighborly get-together with various elected and unelected officials to discuss "issues important two our community." More than 5,200 of these were mailed.

But the presentation suggests something completely different. There's Rep. Schock's handsome face, taking up nearly one-fourth of the page, right next to the names of City Council Representative Barbara Van Auken and Peoria Police Chief Steve Settingsgaard.

In my opinion, this mailer was designed to create an impression that Van Auken and Settingsgaard are supporters of Schock, who will face a difficult challenge from Peoria City Council member Bill Spears.

But that is not the case. Van Auken is supporting Spears, a fellow Democrat, a friend and an ally on the Peoria City Council. Chief Settingsgaard, as a public employee, isn't allowed to endorse candidates, and if he were, it's doubtful he would support someone running against one of his bosses.

This is what I understand to have happened: Van Auken initially declined to attend, but agreed to do so at the urging of constituents who assured her the event was non-political. She was caught by surprise at the flyer and its implication of support for Schock politically, and thinks that some of her constituents might have been mislead about the event's real intent. Settingsgaard also was reluctant to attend, but similarly was assured that the event was supposed to be non political.

Its normal and natural for both Van Auken and Settingsgaard to want to meet with citizens in these sorts of settings. Settingsgaard, who has held his job for slightly more than one year, has made it a point to improve communication between the police and private citizens.

There are other reasons why there are concerns over this mailing. A similar one to residents of the Peoria County Board's 1st District announces a meeting with the principal of Harrison School and "vocalist" Pat Ward, who is a candidate the county board. It begs the question: How can someone who is not currently an office holder be expected to inform the public authoritatively on "state and local issues important to our community."

It suggests these events are more political than educational. Any electioneering at all, and the event becomes political. That means if any candidate asks anyone for their vote, the mailing becomes an illegal use of state funds, according to one politician which whom I spoke.

The mailing has understandably caused Spears and Van Auken to have a discussion about the situation, and he's OK with her explanation. Settingsgaard may back out, but there's bound to be a complaint made to Peoria City Manager Randy Oliver (not from Spears, however).

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David Orr's Letter in today's Defender on Burge, torture, and 35 years

Orr's letter in today's Defender. Not sure if it's published anywhere else (it should be!). The Foie Gras story may have gotton more coverage. Hopefully the full report will be released this Friday.

Dear Editor,

Back in 2002, a Cook County judge appointed special prosecutors to investigate the allegations of torture against former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge.

Now, four years and $5.5 million later, the prosecutors want to release their findings. Not surprisingly, attorneys for Burge and other former officers, accused of using electric shock and suffocation techniques on suspects, don’t want the report to be made public.

For those keeping track, it’s been 13 years since Burge was fired for torturing Andrew Wilson while Wilson was in police custody more than 25 years ago. The allegations of torture surfaced some 35 years ago. Beginning to see a pattern?

These allegations and attempts to cover them up smelled back then just as they do today. After decades of being denied the complete truth about Burge’s alleged atrocities, the public has a right to finally hear it - now.

I applaud the city’s African American aldermen for providing leadership on this issue - one that impacts all of us.

David Orr

Cook County Clerk

cross posted at Bill Baar's West Side

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