Monthly Archive

Yesterday I wrote about the sort of supporters Congressional candidate Mark Pera is attracting in his effort to oust incumbent Dan “annointed son” Lipinski from his Congressional fiefdom seat.

To be fair, I should also note the kind of support Rep. Lipinski has managed to attract (or rather, the kind of support the Lipinski family name seems able to attract), as seen in this Fox News segment.

The Pera campaign notes that one piece of information is missing from that Fox News report: Neither Lipinski the Elder nor the Younger bothered to circulate any petitions whatsoever for the reelection campaign. While certainly incumbents tend to be busy people, so are challengers (usually). Getting out and gathering a few John Hancocks for your own campaign is the least a candidate can do. And, really, talking with constituents is something every incumbent ought to be doing anyway, just to keep tabs on the interests of the people they’re charged with representing.

(Disclosures: I have friends who are working for the Pera campaign.)

Tom Toles takes his own WaPo to task for running a front-page story dedicated to rumors about Barack Obama.

Priceless.

This was not an article about debunking the rumors lies; it was an article rehashing and repeating the already debunked rumors and explaining how his foes are repeating the rumors lies. Nowhere in the article did the reporter mention that these “rumors” are actually “lies” (though he did admit they are “falsehoods” in his subsequent excuse-making explanation). Nowhere in the article did he bother to mention other news outlets had independently researched the “rumors” and found them to be “lies” … let alone that all of that news work demonstrating the “rumors’” fallacy was done months ago.

Say… what happened to that (not really) liberal media?!? I’m sure the conservo-partisans over at Newsbusters.crap are all over this junior high-level rumor mongering on the front page of one of our nation’s premier newspapers.

Greg Sargent gets the last word:

…the problem here is that WaPo, and not just Obama, should have “denied the accuracy” of the Obama-is-a-Muslim nonsense. The Obama Muslim smear is based on lies, not “rumors.” [WaPo reporter Perry] Bacon in his [explanatory] statement above calls the Obama Muslim smears “falsehoods.” But they aren’t identified as such in the piece. That’s what everyone is yelling about.

(h/t IMGoph)

The DNC lists the wild-eyed, got-caught-doing-the-deed spin from cross-dresser and serial adulterer Rudy Giuliani. The GOP hopes you’ll ignore Rudy’s own “revolving Wheel o’ Excuses” (h/t Kagro X):

NEWEST: IT WAS THE COPS! “I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE HANDLING OF THEIR RECORDS. Giuliani was asked: “They say the report says you took trips to the Hampton’s, expensed the cost of your police detail to obscure city offices. One, that is true? If so, is it appropriate? Referring to his security detail, he said “They put in their records. They handled them in the way  they handled them. I had nothing to do with the handling of their records. They were handled as far as I know perfectly appropriately.” [Debate, 11/28/07]

REALITY: Giuliani’s Office Refused Auditors Document Requests. But in 2002, writing to newly elected Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the City’s Comptroller wrote that “The Mayor’s Office refused to provide my auditors with supporting documentation for the payments” under investigation. [1/24/02 letter]

REALITY: Team Giuliani Keeps Changing Their Answers.

EARLIER THEY TRIED THESE ANSWERS

TRY THIS: “SECURITY.” In 2001 and 2002, when city auditors questioned the expenses, the mayor’s office refused to provide the documents, citing “security.” [Politico.com, 11/28/07]

TRY THIS: “ACCOUNTING.” Speaking with the Politico, which broke the story, “A Giuliani aide…denied that the unorthodox billing practices were aimed at hiding the expenses, citing ‘accounting.’” [Politico.com, 11/28/07]

TRY THIS: “COMMON PRACTICE.” Denying charges to the CBS Evening News, the Giuliani campaign said “this is common practice.” [CBS Evening News, 11/28/07]

TRY THIS “HE DID EVERYTHING APPROPRIATE.” Campaign surrogate Congressman Peter King told ABC: “The mayor did absolutely nothing improper, he did everything appropriate, the NYPD did everything appropriate. And even if you read the story carefully it does not say the mayor billed anyone for anything. But again, Mayor Giuliani and his staff, city hall will give a definitive answer. But I can assure you now that everything was done properly and there is absolutely nothing to it.” ["Political Radar," ABCNews.com, 11/28/07]

TRY THIS: “LEGITIMATE EXPENSES,” “FACT OF LIFE” The evening the story broke, top Giuliani aide Tony Carbonetti told the Associated Press that “these were all legitimate expenses incurred in protecting the mayor, and his police detail covered him wherever he went, 24/7.” He continued to say “You just do what you do and the police go with you. That’s just a fact of life when you’re the mayor of New York.” [Associated Press, 11/28/07]

TRY THIS: WE’LL INVESTIGATE. Carbonetti then told reporters in the same time period “that he has ordered an investigation, and “he does not know why the charges were accounted for” in this way. He continued to say “I first learned the fact of this today,” and while he had “heard about something like this a few days ago” he “was told it was being handled.”  ["The Trail," WashingtonPost.com, 11/28/07]

“He did everything appropriate?” Leaving the city you are leading, in the wake of 9/11, (not too mention leaving your wife) to run off for an affair with your mistress in the Hamptons … and charging the tab to the taxpayers … is not appropriate. (This coming from the party that found Clinton’s affair so inappropriate they tried to impeach him for it. While I agree the act and the obfuscation were despicable, he never billed the taxpayers for it.)
Matt Jerzyk puts it succinctly:

The bottom line is that Giuliani was using public money while he was sneaking off to have an affair. Then he tried to cover it up.

Real Presidential.

A few weeks back, Rich Miller talked about the support which the Pera campaign for Congress (among others) is receiving from bloggers. That support is certainly having an effect as it helps Pera raise funds and national awareness about the upcoming Feb. 5th Democratic primary in Illinois.  But, the day when bloggers can bring voters out to the polls is likely still a long way off. The effect still seems to be more of a momentum-changing thing rather than a GOTV thing.

What can get voters out to the polls is grassroots support. As such, this new ad truly speaks for itself as Iraq War vet Trevor Montgomery explains why he has literally dropped everything to support Mark Pera’s primary campaign.

Pera ‘08 website.

Pera ‘08 fundraising page.

Mark Halperin’s not exactly a shining example of journamalism, but he’s reporting that then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani may have tried hiding costs associated for possible Hamptons love romps with his then-mistress (now-wife) Judith Nathan: Giuliani Used Little-Known Agencies to Bill NYC Taxpayers for Hamptons Visits.

I wonder if that sort of fuzzy math comes with satin sheets and mirrored ceilings…

And this is a guy at the front of the pack for the “party of moral values”? Seems like they’ve lost their moral compass. Maybe it’s at the bottom of Long Island Sound.

As frequent Illinois Reason visitor DWLawson noted, he and I have been engaging in conversation regarding our Constitution’s Second Amendment and, specifically, how to treat the word “infringe”.

Basically, due to the phrase “shall not be infringed” he sees no room for any sort of regulation regarding, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.“

On the other hand, I find that “in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” we as a society must be able to regulate and supervise the rights and privileges we have provided for ourselves, lest those rights and privileges become overly abused. We do this by regulating speech despite the language found in the First Amendment — guarding against harm by outlawing fraud, libel, slander, incitement, etc.

The Constitution, in essence, conflicts with itself. Domestic tranquility and the like cannot be provided for in an onslaught of gun violence, yet the Second Amendment provides for a right to bear arms.

To Dave, the solution to this conundrum lies in reacting to those who would abuse guns (and thus shatter “domestic tranquility” by causing violence with their guns) by locking them up and/or shooting them in self-defense. His answer is more guns as a deterrant (”Don’t dare aim your gun at me because you don’t know if I’m Quick Draw McGraw or not”) combined with enforcement of existing murder, manslaughter and battery laws.

I’d rather be proactive in the theory that if we as a society see a given abuse happening routinely and often, we ought to take steps to prevent that abuse (in this case, misuse of guns) from continuing. My solution involves regulating and supervising guns, while still allowing for our right to bear arms.

To Dave, this means I’m a “statist” — wanting to cede power held by the people to the state. That’s an odd way of thinking about it, since it is we the people who instruct the state what to do through our Constitutional rights and obligations (not just voting, though that is an essential part of it). The problem for folks like Dave is that when they lose in the democratic republican process (little-l and little-r), they see it as the end of the world and begin constructing hyperboles and conspiracies in order to cope with the fact they lost an election or a legislative vote.

So now you know the two sides we’re coming from.

Dave posted a run-down of his view of our conversation at his blog, “We Are the Militia.” Please read it before continuing here.

In addition to my earlier replies in comments on this blog (here and here), following is a more complete reply to his commentary about what he ultimately labels my “twisted logic” (not that I don’t find his own parsing and imaginary boundaries to also be based on “twisted logic”, let alone short-sightedness and a host of other choice words).

I understand Dave’s premises perfectly well, I simply disagree. Whereas he equivocates on what should or should not be considered “arms” under 2A, I think it’s clear that 2A is designed to include all arms. Whereas he believes the phrasing of the Second Amendment does not allow for any legislation regarding those arms whatsoever (at least not the arms he thinks the Founders intended), I believe there is room — in order to maintain the general welfare — for the people to supervise arms through reasonable legislation.

A few other points to consider…

Let’s start with his essay’s end: an interesting analogy that he recites, which commenters to his blog seem to think is valid.

So it seems the “infringe” is accurately defined as “encroach”.

Imagine this analogy (h/t to 45superman for the analogy).

Rob and I have adjoining properties. My fence “encroaches” on his property two feet, thus taking part of his yard.

According to Rob, that’s ok, because he still has plenty of yard left.

So how much encroachment is necessary before Rob has had enough and demands I move the fence? Would I have to take his entire yard?

By Rob’s twisted logic, since I have not taken his entire yard, I have not encroached on his property.

Chicago and Cook County Ordinances significantly restrict the type of arms that residents can own. Dan’s SB1007 and SB16 both would extend restrictions to the entire state.

Before his friends run around using this yard analogy (they already are) they may take care to realize it’s apples to oranges. You can’t encroach on property you don’t own. As point of fact, several commenters at this blog and others admitted they did not yet own the sort of weapons Sen. Kotowski’s legislation was designed to regulate, but that they were hoping to run out and buy them before the legislation went into effect. Again, you can’t encroach on property you don’t own, even if you plan to buy it soon.

Even at that, the grandfathering clauses enshrined in the legislation allowed Dave (should he already own the weapons) to continue to own them so long as they bought them before the law went into effect. Again, the analogy fails because it does not reflect reality.

Earlier in his remarks, Dave repeated two annoying lies.

First, he writes:

Statists such as Mayor Daley and Dan “the Ban” Kowtowski feel that only the police and military should have guns.

(…Odd that Dave would claim such given the NRA’s front group NSSF sent out a false mailer in Kotowski’s district claiming he wanted to take guns away from even the military.) This is akin to Dave and his comrades’ claims that Sen. Kotowski would take guns away from people; that he is somehow a “gun grabber”.

As I noted, his proposed legislation allows citizens who already own the weapons to keep them. That Dave would lie about that simply means he’s bought into the ISRA’s spin (they produce the spin to try and keep sympathizers like Dave in the fold).

His second lie is more disturbing because it demonstrates an utter lack of respect for honesty. Dave wrote:

Dan also likes to send the storm troopers to the houses of those that lawfully voice their dissent with his attempts to violate the U.S. Constitution.

The police are hardly “storm troopers” (with all the Nazi connotations I’m sure Dave intended, since his comrades have also used the phrase with precisely that meaning). They were conducting an investigation into alleged death threats (1, 2, and 3) as Dave and everyone who has followed the issue well knows. Or, does Dave not think the message “I have a gun. I’m coming to kill you,” is not an apparent death threat?

The only (only) person who has come forward to protest such a visit by detectives is one Mr. Tom Warchol, who outed his own anonymity some time ago by going on NRA Radio’s “Cam & Company” show. Though he and the ISRA have repeatedly asserted his message to Sen. Kotowski was ‘not threatening‘, neither he nor the ISRA have ever publicly posted the contents of his original message in one of the ISRA’s common press releases.

Perhaps his comments to Sen. Kotowski were benign and even “utterly cordial” (as Mr. Hoffman puts it), but without seeing the message we can’t judge it.

And since we cannot judge it for ourselves, we must review what is already known about Mr. Warchol. For that, I turn to Kurt “45 Superman” Hoffman who explained that Mr. Warchol made a whopper of an exaggeration (intentionally or not) during his NRA Radio interview, claiming his own State Senator (Pam Altoff, R-Crystal Lake) told him the state police visited 500 homes in the course of their investigation into alleged death threats against Sen. Kotowski. In fact, she said nothing of the kind to him. What she actually told him was that Sen. Kotowski received about 500 messages from pro-gun advocates.

Big difference.

As I’ve remarked before, I don’t take issue with the folks who think differently on 2A than I do. We are each entitled to our opinions and have the right to voice and defend those opinions. On election day we can take concrete action to reflect those opinions. Every other day we can write and speak and debate to voice those opinions.

What I do take issue with, however, are the lies the pro-2A gang continuously try to spread in order to smear Sen. Kotowski.

In that light, I am no “apologist” as Dave claims. What is there to apologize for since I’m simply explaining my beliefs and defending a guy from lies being spread about him? I’m pointing out the truths that Dave and others routinely choose to ignore — as he has done yet again with his latest blogpost. No need for me to apologize the actions of Dave and others.

Finally, thanks for the compliments Dave; right back at you.

Paul Richardson posted in this morning’s Capital Fax Morning Shorts about 14th CD Republican Congressional candidate Chris Lauzen “winning” something called the Ben Franklin Award from a group known as the 60 Plus Association. 60+ is a self-declared “non-partisan” organization pitching itself as “the conservative alternative to the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).”

In reality, this “non-partisan” group can’t seem to get enough photos of Pres. George Bush up on their homepage. And, they’ve been labeled a Big Pharma front group in the past because most of their funding appears to be derived from pharmaceutical companies, not individual citizen members. In return, the group routinely advocates for the conservative partisan, Big Business side in any debates about health care, prescription drugs, social security, and more.

In fact, according to an AARP investigation the 60 Plus Association and other Big Pharma front groups had listed absolutely zero funds from membership dues on their tax forms as of 2001. That strongly implies they have few, if any, actual members. Go figure.

If getting funding from a major player in the political arena and advocating only one political philosophy in all matters (rather than encouraging bipartisanship and compromise, as AARP does) is what passes for “non-partisan”, then George Bush’s friends at the 60 Plus Association are about as non-partisan as Daily Kos or Illinois Review…

In other words, they’re only non-partisan in the strictest definition of the word since they are not directly affiliated with or funded by a political party. 60 Plus’ admitted bias toward conservative platforms, however, does reveal them to be partisan in more commonly accepted definitions of the word. Indeed, both their Pres. James Martin and honorary chair, Ret. Congressman Roger Zion (R-IN), are staunch advocates for “the conservative cause”.

It’s little surprise the highly partisan conservatives at the 60 Plus Association would give their meaningless award to a fellow anti-tax conservative such as Chris Lauzen.

That they named their MacGuffin trophy after Ben Franklin is demeaning to his legacy of forthrightness and intellectual curiosity and Mr. Lauzen ought to refuse to accept it.

If not, what’s next for Lauzen? A photo op bus tour of Potemkin villages in the 14th?

(Sorta cross-posted as a comment over CapFax’s Morning Shorts.)

What’re you thankful for this Thanksgiving? I’m thankful most of all for my wonderful family and friends and all the blessings we’re able to share.

This blog has from time to time discussed Andy Schlafly and his conserv-o-partisan “Conservapedia”, which is mislabeled as “The Trustworthy Encyclopedia”. In reality, this work of fiction gives rational, honest conservatives everywhere a black eye by promoting some of the more silly “rhetoric” (if it can be called that) on the Internets.

Interestingly, nine of the ten most popular topics at Andy-Boy’s conservative wiki (trailing only the main page in popularity) deal with issues which one might think are not on the top of most folks’ gaydar radar but apparently are mighty important matters for social conservatives.

From the Conservapedia “Statistics” page:

Most viewed pages

1. Main Page‎ [1,912,012]
2. Homosexuality‎ [1,583,882]
3. Homosexuality and Hepatitis‎ [517,345]
4. Homosexuality and Promiscuity‎ [421,055]
5. Gay Bowel Syndrome‎ [393,822]
6. Homosexuality and Parasites‎ [388,470]
7. Homosexuality and Domestic Violence‎ [373,149]
8. Homosexuality and Gonorrhea‎ [331,665]
9. Homosexuality and Mental Health‎ [292,657]
10. Homosexual Agenda‎ [270,376]

Why are cons so fascinated by teh gay? What is it that they find so appealling? Recall that curiosity killed the cat, so it’s a good thing the Republicans (conservatives included) are represented by elephants.

That said, what the heck is “gay bowel syndrome” and why does Andy Schlafly’s Conservapedia find it so … alluring … that it’s in the Top 5?

Suitable for framing…

Be sure to keep all this info quiet from Petey LaBarbera lest he find himself lost in ‘research’.

(h/t Cheers & Jeers and Graham)

Did you know that if you put unpopped popcorn kernels in the turkey they’ll pop while it’s roasting and you’ll have instant popcorn stuffing?

Hilariously, that apparently was one of the few goofball remarks that Illinois Review contributors failed to post in their Day of Doody.

Archpundit takes the Review gang to task by highlighting such gems as Jill Stanek linking (in all seriousness) to kooky claims that Terry Schiavo was fully aware despite having nearly half her brain literally and sadly being liquified and George Dienhart rambling on about what he believes are qualifications for being considered anti-American, including opposing Pres. Bush’s failing NCLB of all things. (Arch also points out Fran Eaton’s two-faced regurgitation of anti-Bob Creamer points. I’ll have more on that in a bit.)

But while you’re passing the popcorn and cracking up over the Ill Reviewers’ inanities, don’t forget to read their best Alfred E. Neuman impression in  the whiney comments from Ms. Stanek and Mr. Dienhart who, unfortunately for them, don’t read what they write and link to…

These people want to be considered serious? (Worse, anyone actually takes them seriously?)

It’s ok, though. I hear Bill Clinton made them do it… perhaps by using his sax appeal.

(As an aside, good thing Ron Paul fan C-Rock hasn’t tracked down George Dienhart’s anti-Paul squeel. He might find a new blog to enjoy. …I do find it really bizarre that Paul supporters were calling uber-conservative Mr. Dienhart “lefty”. So much in-fighting, so many kilobytes in which to do it.)

Talk about dumping a stinking, steaming load on our vets… Via Carpetbagger Report:

When Jordan Fox was serving in Iraq, his mother helped organize Operation Pittsburgh Pride, which sends thousands of care packages to U.S. troops from his hometown, which prompted a personal “thank you” from the White House. When Fox was seriously injured in Iraq, the president sent what appeared to be personal note, expressing his concerns to the Fox family.

But more recently, Fox received a different piece of correspondence from the Bush administration.

The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments.

To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases.

Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.

[...] Last week, the Pentagon sent him a bill: Fox owed the government nearly $3,000 of his signing bonus.

Is this sort of spit-in-a-vet’s-face attitude what Republicans mean by “smaller government” and “saving tax dollars”? What are they so fond of saying? That’s right: “It’s your money!”

To that shortsighted greediness I say no thank you. Without our armed forces serving honorably and loyally there would be no America in which to earn your money. Without each of us contributing our fair share to invest in our country there would be no armed forces, especially not the caliber of personnel by whom we are blessed to be defended.

Those brave and stalwart Americans (including several in my family) who choose to serve our country and sacrifice themselves in defense of our Constitution deserve our utmost respect and admiration — not harassment by the Rumsfeld-Cheney-Gates collection agency.

At least the Democrats, contrary to the cons’ lying spin, offer our veterans the dignity they deserve in light of their sacrifices. Again, from Carpetbagger:

For what it’s worth, Fox’s congressman, Democrat Jason Altmire, has introduced a bill to prohibit the Bush administration from asking the troops for refunds.

[...] “Hard as it may be to believe, the Department of Defense has been denying injured servicemen and women the bonuses that they qualified for,” Mr. Altmire said.

He said he drafted the legislation after hearing “outrageous” examples of bonuses being denied…. Mr. Altmire’s legislation, the Veterans Guaranteed Bonus Act, would require the Defense Department to pay bonuses in full within 30 days to veterans discharged because of combat-related wounds.

You can call your Congressman to demand they support Rep. Altmire’s Veterans Guaranteed Bonus Act via the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 or directly by searching this directory. And, here are some tips on how best to present your support for our troops and Rep. Altmire’s proposal when calling.

(h/t Army veteran Kos)

UPDATE: In comments at the Carpetbagger Report thread, Olo points out the Bush Pentagon has been doing this to Iraq War vets for years.

One particular story comes via the book Purple Hearts: Back from Iraq by Nia Berman, which was published in 2004. Author Nia Berman recounts, among other soldiers’ stories, the details of Army veteran Tyson Johnson’s ordeal with the Pentagon demanding a return of his signing bonus since “he didn’t fulfill his contract because he was wounded.”

(h/t Stephen Handwerk at We the People! Mr. Handwerk also includes a list of additional linked stories — at the end of his WTP! column — about several other wounded vets being pestered to return their signing bonuses. Where the heck is the supposedly-but-not-really “liberal” media on these stories about how the Republicans choose to “cutback on tax dollars”?!)

Rep. David Obey (D-WI) tells Pres. Bush who to call for a good time:

“Let me repeat,” said Obey, “the money [Bush recently requested for Iraq] has already been provided by the House of Representatives. If the president wants that $50 billion released, all he has to do is to call the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, and ask him to stop blocking it. That phone number is (202) 224-2541, in case anybody’s interested.”

[...] “I would be happy to provide them with the entire $200 billion that they’ve requested for the remainder of the year — of next year, I should say — if the administration accepted these modest and reasonable conditions.”

That’s the problem with blocking upper-down-votes by filibustering common sense legislation… Too bad for the Republican President that it’s the Republicans in the Senate doing the obstructionalism. (And, again, notice how the Senate Repubs dropped the “nuclear option” like a moldy apple and decided to leave filibustering well enough alone? Gee, seems like that decision was made just about a year ago.)

Now if only Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would actually force the Republicans to commit to a real filibuster instead of a double-dog-dare with ketchup on top pseudo filibuster.

(h/t Huffington Post)

Republican college-dropout Steve “silver spoon elitist” Greenberg officially opened his 8th district hq yesterday and the Northwest Herald was on the beat covering his platitudes:

“We are going to make a stand here in this district,” said Steve Greenberg, one of three Republicans vying for the party nomination. “We are going to send a message to Washington, to Springfield, that Republicans are alive in Illinois.”

[...] Greenberg told a group of about 50 supporters that the only pork he liked was the barbecued meat on which audience members were munching. He chided Democratic leadership in Washington for pork-barrel spending decisions and endorsed benchmarking every department funded through the federal budget.

He also took jabs at state leaders who redirected federal earmarks to help fund construction projects and at what he called Cook County’s “idiocracy” for its reliance on the collar counties’ fiscal support.

“We’re going to put a stake in the ground, and we’re going to send a message,” Greenberg said [...]

Zzzz zzzz zzzz… Take a stand… Send a message… Barbecued meat… Stake in the ground…

The funny thing about “chiding” Dems for “pork-barrel spending” is that they have at least been more honest about it by describing what the spending was for (the Republicans tended to hide that information behind procedural cloaks when they were in control). No, it’s not yet perfectly open and transparent but it’s far better than the hypocritical partisans like Mr. Greenberg keep bleeting about given the elephants’ own history of smoked-pork-and-mirrors and bacon-wrapped duplicity.

Moreover, it was the now-former Republican majority that skyrocketed our nation’s debt. In fact, the Republicans spent with such reckless abandon that they were forced to raise the Federal debt ceiling (akin to a credit card limit) not once but twice in recent years.

And Mr. Greenberg thinks we’ll trust him enough to give the Repubs the power to do that again? Our debt-holders in China, Saudi Arabia and Russia are clapping their hands with excitement at the prospect of more GOP-inspired debt.

Even his griping about Federal spending on construction projects here at home is bogus. Illinois sends more money into the Federal coffers than it gets back — it’s called “red-state welfare“. If our taxes are our investments in our communities, our state and our nation, why wouldn’t Mr. Greenberg be advocating for more equitability rather than cutting our communities off at their knees?

Another bit of Greenberg silliness that the compass-toting NW Herald chose to overlook? Mr. Greenberg “said he favored continued support of the troops in Iraq and securing U.S. borders against illegal immigrants.”

Both those tasks cost gobs of pork money, with one estimate placing the hidden costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars (odd that Mr. Greenberg doesn’t mention supporting our troops in the former home of al Qaida) at nearly $1.6 trillion-with-a-T. But perhaps pork for Republican donors and allies in the military-industrial complex is ok in Mr. Greenberg’s mind. And current estimates of $2.2 billion-with-a-B for a wall that would cover only one-third of our Mexican border already put that project in the realm of complete waste of taxpayer’s money. Show me a 12-foot wall and I’ll show you a 15-foot ladder (or a good pick and shovel set) … not to mention the other 1300 miles of border that would not be walled off.

Finally, why is a guy running in a district that is mainly in McHenry and Lake Counties yelling about Cook County? What does Todd Stroger have to do with Washington, DC?

So many weak cliches and distractions … so few proposals to arm Taiwan with nukes “deeply thought out plans” backed by “knowledgeable people”.

(PS “Surrenderlicans” — incumbent Rep. Melissa Bean has been “supporting the troops” for that matter.)

Upon losing an FEC complaint which he originally announced with all the hoopla of a Dancing With the Stars promo claiming that the progressive Daily Kos blog was a political entity rather than the media outlet it is, conserv-o-partisan John “Myopic and Fuzzy” Bambenek got on his high horse and threatened to take the issue to Federal court so he could shoot spitballs there instead.

Far from the “brilliant timing” his packlike friends extolled, quite a few folks more logical than they pointed out his filing was completely without merit since the FEC had already decided the issue with a position exactly contrary to Mr. Bambenek’s complaint. Perhaps that was why the FEC slammed the door shut on Mr. Bambenek by dismissing his claim in record time. He lost his case in such a spectacular fireball of idiocy that the normally staid FEC chastised the guy for even wasting their time by typing up the complaint in the first place.

Still others — including this site — also explained just how Mr. Bambenek’s very same complaint against the progressive blog Daily Kos could also be made against just about every other political blog in existence in America, notably that of Mr. Bambenek’s friends at the conservative Illinois Review blog (where he himself has also occasionally posted). Thus, was his goofy short-sighted hypocrisy exposed in addition to his complete and utter lack of understanding of FEC guidelines.

Turns out Mr. Bambenek’s still a dork (and I say that with all the respect due someone of his intellectual caliber) since he’s now proven to be all talk and no action by letting the appeals filing deadline pass. Maybe he was too busy picking out his frozen turkee, but at least he finally listened to all the astute people in the room by not bothering to continue chasing his own little hypocritical windmill.

Why anyone continues to give this guy a forum for his fatuousness is unclear.

[Update: As noted in comments by journalist Rich Miller, Mr. Rick Pearson is a political reporter for the Chicago Tribune while Mr. Rich Pearson is a lobbyist for the Illinois State Rifle Association and a columnist in gun enthusiast publications. This blogpost is about the ISRA's Rich Pearson.]

The Illinois State Rifle Association’s Rick Rich Pearson has a column in Adventure Sports Online magazine (PDF version here or HTML conversion here) which has very little to do with outdoor adventure sports and a whole lot to do with ranting about politics from the international to the local.

Mr. Pearson starts out discussing the strife in Burma, throws in a brief history lesson about WWII alliances, gives his spin on the UN and Laura Bush, and goes on to cover the Turks in Armenia in the nineteen-teens; all under the prism of his opposition to reasonable gun supervision. Mr. Pearson brings it all home by stretching (and I mean ssttrreettcchhiinngg) in his conclusion to highlight a fellow who appears to really enjoy the heat of spotlights — Mr. Tom Warchol of Illinois — and rail against Mr. Pearson’s favorite nemesis, legislative workhorse State Sen. Dan Kotowski.

On Wednesday, October 10th, 2007, the House of Foreign Relations Committee approved a resolution labeling the murder of 1.5 million Armenians by Turks in 1915 as genocide. The Turks are upset the White House is not happy about this resolution and the White House is not happy about the resolution. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, stated the resolution was “highly destabilizing” to U.S. government in the Middle East. Maybe so, but it points out what happens when a population is disarmed. In short, the Turks promised the Armenians protection – instead they disarmed them and slaughtered them. Would the UN have saved the Armenians? No! The UN’s official position is that the right of self-defense is not a human right.

Undoubtedly, the UN would have drawn a strong letter of protest. That would have shown the Turks. The moral of these disasters is to never, ever give up our Second Amendment rights!!! But this is Illinois 2007 – we are in the heart of the U.S. Oh, yeah. We are safe. But just let people write letters to an Illinois Senator and in return they receive visits from the State Police. That is exactly what happened to Tom Warchol and his wife Joanne when they sent faxes to Senator Dan Kotowski.

The earlier paragraphs of that disjointed Pearson rant are just as illogical. One wonders if Mr. Pearson sees black helicopters too…

Unsurprisingly, Mr. Warchol himself is an apparent ISRA sympathizer and ally of Mr. Pearson’s efforts at the ISRA lobbying against reasonable weapons supervision. For those unfamiliar with Mr. Pearson’s shrill paranoia about Sen. Kotowski, Mr. Pearson sent out press release after press release over the past year, including statements about the Illinois State Police’s investigation into threats that Sen. Kotowski’s office staff did receive.

It is unclear from the June 18th, 2007 ISRA press release whether the “ISRA member” who was complaining about a visit from the State Police was in fact Mr. Warchol, but Mr. Warchol certainly inserted himself into the issue by appearing on the NRA’s webcast radio program “Cam & Company”. In that radio interview, Mr. Warchol ‘exaggerated’ by saying that his own State Senator (Pam Althoff, R-Crystal Lake) had told him the police visited 500 homes. What actually happened was that the police had visited some of the homes from among the 500 contacts (letters, faxes, emails and phone calls) that Sen. Kotowski’s office received. The investigators visited those people in the process of building their case — attempting to decide if any crime had been committed and, if so, who might be guilty of such a crime.

First off, there’s a huge difference between Mr. Warchol’s claim that “the police visited 500 homes” and the reality that the police were simply contacting some people from among the 500 pieces of correspondence Sen. Kotowski’s office received on the issue of gun supervision (see “Update 7“). So we know Mr. Warchol has a flair for exaggeration in the heat of the moment.

Second, Mr. Warchol and the ISRA do not appear to have made Mr. Warchol’s letter to Sen. Kotowski public. Google searches of the ISRA website in particular and the Internet in general have turned up nothing. (I’m sure Sen. Kotowski’s critics will quickly correct me if I’m wrong, and I’ll gladly post the contents of Mr. Warchol’s letter should they do so.) Without seeing the contents of his letter, it is impossible for the public to judge Mr. Warchol’s correspondence to the Senator for themselves. Though, again, we do know Mr. Warchol has a penchant for hyperbole.

Third, as has been explained by rational people time and again, it makes perfect sense that the police would talk with people involved in a given matter even if they are not the people under investigation. Certainly this is happening now in Bolingbrook as the police talk with families and friends of the missing and dead wives of Bolingbrook Police Sgt. Drew Peterson just as it has happened in every other police investigation in the history of police investigations. Detectives try to gather as much information as they can til they get to the bottom of the matter.

Finally, entitling his column with the threatening lingo “Drawing a Bead” is an obvious double-standard given Mr. Pearson’s past harping on Father Michael Pfleger’s use of the equally heated rhetoric advocating that a gun shop owner’s store be “snuffed out”. Both phrases, in their proper context, have clearly benign meanings. But that Mr. Pearson would choose to screech about the one (trying to claim Fr. Pfleger wanted the gun shop owner killed) while doing the same thing himself only magnifies his hypocrisy.

From this latest rant which includes just about everything but a kitchen sink, it’s crystal clear that Mr. Pearson’s fetish with Sen. Kotowski is truly devolving into the bizarre. His hypocrisy and Mr. Warchol’s flair for embellishment do their “advocacy work” promoting free love for weapons no favors. No wonder so many gun enthusiasts — collectors, hunters, marksmen, etc. — denounce the ISRA and its followers’ routine goofy extremism.

Sidenote: Retiring State Rep. Carolyn Krause’s (R) most recent Legislative Update newsletter arrived in mailboxes in recent days. Rep. Krause’s 66th district covers the western half of Sen. Kotowski’s 33rd district.

In her update, we learn the results of her most recent unscientific constituent poll. One of the more interesting results was that citizens in the district prefer stronger gun supervision at a rate of 80% for to 20% against. This is precisely why Sen. Kotowski, among his many other legislative efforts in other important areas, also works so diligently on public safety measures. His constituents demand nothing less.

Disclosures: As I’ve often noted, I proudly and gladly volunteer for Sen. Kotowski’s campaign efforts.

–

UPDATE 2: MT asked for the wording of the above mentioned survey question from Rep. Carolyn Krause’s 2007 legislative update mailer. The question was:

“11. Should the state ban the sale of assault weapons?”

And the unscientific response was:

“80% Yes, 20% No”

Click the thumbnail image for a scan (440kb JPEG) of the interior of Rep. Krause’s legislative mailer, with the survey at the bottom. The referenced question is the last one in the survey.

From the subhead to today’s Tribune front-page story on BP’s plant in Indiana (which dumps toxic waste in our drinking water):

Officials contend that they still don’t know how to keep levels of ammonia and solids routinely below the stricter limits they had pledged to follow

If they “don’t know” how to keep the levels under what they promised then they need to try harder. Millions of families drink that water and hundreds of thousands of people swim, fish and otherwise recreate in Lake Michigan.

Don’t just give up (as the Republican Indiana governor’s “exemptions” would allow BP to do).

Fight harder to do the right thing.

…I would say the blog posts have been slow out of sympathy for the Writers Guild of America strike, but it’s really just because I’ve been busy. I should be getting back to regular writing in the next few days (not that anyone’s missing anything, right?).

As for that strike, those people who oppose giving folks an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work ought to consider this conundrum presented by Daily Kos diarist SusanG…

The first story line in the present instance is sketched out via a Business Week Q & A with a small business expert, alarmingly headlined Writers Strike Could Devastate Small Business:

How are small businesses going to be affected by this strike?

Thousands of small businesses are going to lose revenues. I wouldn’t be surprised if several hundred would have to close operations. [...]

Who’s really going to suffer the most if it does stretch out that long?

It’s the small business player who is the unsung victim here, and there will be a big trickle-down from them throughout the entire economy….

Naturally, it’s best to frame this in terms of hitting the little guy hard. But the real clincher in this argument is that these people (writers, auto workers, truck drivers, teachers, air traffic controllers, whoever is striking that day) are so absolutely vital to the health of the American economy that they, and they alone, are going to bring down upon this nation a crash of unprecedented proportions. Billions of dollars lost! Hundreds of businesses close! Unsung victims! Trickle down! Entire economy!

But … they’re not worth sharing a dime more of residuals with. Or providing a decent pension or health care plan for, or adjusting overtime compensation, or whatever the issue is in a specific strike. [...]

If they’re the foundation the economy is built upon, pay them accordingly. If they’re not, quit screaming that the sky is falling if they decide not to show up for work.

While you ponder this two-faced nature of the union haters’ spin, Technorati kindly asks that I post this to “get the ball rolling” for their services: Technorati Profile

It’s disgusting that stories like this about our own American vets are easier to find in foreign media.

Honor our veterans this Veteran’s Day.

Charity Navigator lists their unbiased rankings of the 5 best and worst veteran charities. A very good local organization for vets and their families is SALUTE and I encourage you to learn more about their efforts and donate.

Orange + Blue = Sweet

And that’s really all I have to say about that…

So, the young Aaron Schock has decided that he wants to invite war between China and Taiwan.  Beyond the incredible stupidity of trying to transform Taiwan into a nuclear power overnight, beyond the incredible naivety of Schock’s statements regarding financing “freedom fighters” in Iran.  Beyond all that, has even considered the direct implications for the United States were we to follow Mr. Schock’s advice?

 Ignore, for a moment, the idea of war between Taiwan and China (a war we would inevitably be drawn into).  Ignore, for a moment, the stupidity of repeating history in Iran.  Ignore the stupidity of arming a whole new generation of mujahideen and further destabilizing the Middle East. 

Ask yourself…WWCD?  What Would China Do?  What would Beijing do if we agreed to give Taiwan nuclear arms?  Realistically, Taiwan doesn’t have suicidal tendencies, and would not purchase nukes from the United States.  It wouldn’t let us put nukes on their soil.  Because, you know, they don’t want a million or 5 chinese soldiers landing on their beaches.

What would China do to the United States if we gave Taiwan nuclear arms?

Well, consider this.  China owns more of the debt of the United States government than any other entity on the planet, except Japan.  According to the United States Treasury, the federal government owes the Central Bank of China $400 BILLION as of August 2007.  Hong Kong’s semi-autonomous, but ultimately Beijing-controlled government owns an additional $56 billion of our debt.   The combined figure (China plus Hong Kong) is $20 billion higher than it was 1 year prior.  Also, numerous oil exporters hold over $125 billion in our debt, many of which have regimes hostile to us and friendly to China.

If China quit buying our debt, that alone would cause significant economic damage.  China could use that debt to inflict far greater damage very quickly.

Not only that, but China produces enormous amounts of the goods we consume every day.  What kind of damage would it do if China imposed a trade embargo upon the United States?  Oh sure, it would inflict severe damage upon China itself, but China’s a single party dictatorship.   It’s not like the government has anything significant to fear from a disenchanted electorate.  Furthermore, China exercises a great deal of soft power throughout the world.  China could lean on numerous trading partners to join in on said embargo.

 And then there’s the war that would occur…

 Aaron, you really should stay away from the foreign policy.  That’s for the big kids.  Not little neo-con tykes like yourself.

Talk about missing the point. Seriously… “No, he’s not for torture?“

If Attorney General Michael Mukasey were actually opposed to torture then why didn’t he simply say so?

Instead he hemmed and hawed and claimed he didn’t know what waterboarding was. Only later did he say torture was repugnant, but he still didn’t declare that he would actually enforce our nation’s laws banning the repugnant, un-American practice.

But none of that stopped the Trib from defending anti-American values while contradicting themselves in the process:

But he won’t say it is illegal. And there’s at least one important reason: Such a declaration could open the potential for criminal prosecution or lawsuits against CIA officers who used the harsh interrogation practice. It could also endanger their bosses and anyone else who authorized the practice. [...]

A vote for Mukasey is not a vote to defend waterboarding. The technique is illegal under the 2005 anti-torture amendment promoted by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). That law prohibited “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment of prisoners — including waterboarding, as McCain and others reiterated in a letter sent to Mukasey this week. [Writer's Note: This is only technically true -- the President still has the ability to set the definition of what is or isn't "cruel, inhuman and degrading" and his definition may differ from 2/3rds of Americans. And besides, we know the White House has ok'ed the use of waterboarding.]

If that law wasn’t specific enough, the president and Congress last year agreed on rules for interrogating and trying suspected terrorists that also would prohibit waterboarding, according to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a veteran military lawyer. [Writer's Note: As we've seen time and again, the President often tends to say one thing and then do another when he thinks no one's looking.]

So the Trib first says an Attorney General should not declare torture to be illegal and then in later paragraphs says we shouldn’t worry because torture is illegal (on paper at least).

Even Sen. Graham, to whom the Trib referred, said of AG Candidate Mukasey:

“I am urging him that he needs to come forward. If he does not believe that waterboarding is illegal, then that would really put doubts in my own mind because I don’t think you have to have a lot of knowledge about the law to understand this technique violates” the Geneva Convention and other statutes, Graham said.

Torture should be illegal; not allowed by unitary executive fiat.

The definition of torture should be based on common sense and existing laws and international treaties; not parsed legalese.

The point the Trib is completely missing is that even though the laws passed by Congress may say torture is illegal, Pres. Bush has in the past asked his former Attorneys General (he’s had two now) to declare that he, as president, can simply ignore the law. 

Pres. Bush, in his best impression of Ellen DeGeneres’ dog lamentation, is now whining that America may have to go without an Attorney General because Democrats are increasingly refusing to accept an AG candidate who is wishy-washy on actually enforcing the law. Good. America deserves an AG which will enforce the law, no matter the political pressure from the West Wing to allow our “president” to ignore the law. (That’s no longer an American presidency; it is something very different.)

If Tribune editorial page editor and excuse-maker extraordinaire Bruce Dold doesn’t think waterboarding is torture then perhaps he’d enjoy being on the receiving end as a demonstration of the procedure.

Maybe then he’ll decide not to continue overlooking the many ways in which this “conservative” president has found ways to ignore and blatantly disobey our nation’s laws. Since when was considering one’s self to be above the law a part of the conservative philosophy such that the Trib would pimp a knee-jerk defense of it?

When will the craziness from the people claiming to be Christian stop?

I would think this would be a parody, but they link to “Rev.” Phelps’ virulently anti-gay bullcrap and their other posts (especially their replies to comments) sound genuine enough.

Here’s hoping I’m wrong and these sorry sobs aren’t contributing to the black eye other arch-conservative nitwits are constantly giving Christianity.

I wrote earlier about what each of us can do in the wake of the devastatingly massive wildfires still burning in California. Now we learn some of that devastation may have been a self-fulfilling prophecy due to a lack of foresight.

What is the opposite of foresight?

Ask conservatives in Orange County, California, what their plans for “tax relief” involve and you’ll learn the answer. As we all know (but as many cons apparently refuse to admit), there’s no such thing as a free lunch. We pay for things either coming or going.

Word out of California is that the cons in charge throughout southern California had been on a tax-opposition spree … and expenses had to be cut to compensate. Expenses like new fire equipment and staff reductions in a region prone to wildfires. Just as conservatives staunchly opposed a small increase in Minnesota’s fuel tax in order to pay for infrastructure like bridges, cons in southern California opposed shifting first responders’ budgets leaving local firefighters unable to properly staff their equipment and without basics for the mountainous area like air support helicopters.

The LA Times tells us:

Before the Santiago fire started in the hills northeast of Irvine, the Orange County fire department already had been hobbled.

Its fire engines were staffed below national standards, it had fewer firefighters per capita than neighboring counties, and its army of men and women ready to fight the blaze may have been weakened by changes in the county’s volunteer firefighter program. [...]

Crews with three firefighters work more slowly than larger crews, according to a study by the Insurance Services Organization, a national group that evaluates fire departments.

And why was this so? Because local conservatives opposed taxes and even opposed simple funding shifts… The Orange County Register (which also opposed those same strategies aimed at funding fire preparedness) hypocritically explained:

Two of the Orange County politicians now complaining about the lack of air support for the Santiago Fire opposed firefighters’ effort to purchase new helicopters and trucks two years ago.

In fact, county officials today are sitting on more than $80 million in excess revenue from a statewide public safety sales tax adopted 13 years ago.

That surplus has been a longstanding sore spot for OC firefighters, who at times this week were so overwhelmed they had to seek refuge inside fire retardant tents.

The firefighter’s 2005 ballot initiative would have redirected a small portion of the ½ cent sales tax, providing $8 million for new helicopters and $33 million for new fire trucks.

But the entire Board of Supervisors, the sheriff and district attorney opposed the measure, saying it was an attempt to pick the pocket of county law enforcement. County voters rejected the initiative, with 73 percent voting no.

This week, State Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Orange and Orange County Supervisor Bill Campbell joined Orange County Fire Authority Chief Chip Prather in blaming state fire officials for not sending enough air support during the early hours of the fire.

Spitzer called the lack of resources being delivered by the state “unconscionable.”

That rankled firefighters, who remember that both Campbell and Spitzer campaigned against their funding measure and signed the ballot arguments against it. (emphasis added)

Real smart. (Not.) They oppose adequate preparation and then blame someone else for the consequences of their own actions.

Robert in Monterey (in the heart of the devastated area) wrote a few days back about “Measure D”, a referendum to increase taxes to cover, in part, fire preparedness. Local cons strongly opposed the common sense measure and it failed. Those same cons are now trying to play Alfred E. Neuman, “Who Me?”. Robert again explains:

Sunday’s article, “How Anti-Union, Anti-Tax OC Conservatives Defeated Adequate Fire Protection in 2005,” seems to have struck a nerve among Orange County conservatives. Yesterday the Orange County Register, whose editorials against Measure D in 2005 were a prime target of my article, devoted their lead editorial to the charges I laid out here on Sunday.

It’s understandable that conservatives bristle at being called to account for the catastrophic outcomes of their ideological agenda. The devastation wreaked on the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina irreparably damaged the Bush Administration and set the Republicans on the long road to losing the Congress. Millions of Americans saw the effects of Grover Norquist’s “drown government in a bathtub” strategy. The Register’s editorial pages, long devoted to a similar anti-government, anti-tax, anti-union agenda, have a clear interest in distancing themselves from last week’s disaster.

But their editorial defense does not quite achieve its objectives. The Register does not rebut the fact that OC firefighters lacked necessary equipment that Measure D would have funded. More importantly, the editorial actually reinforces my core argument - that the conservative agenda the Register and others in OC promoted is intended to leave Californians lacking adequate fire protection and placing their safety in the hands of a private market. (emphasis added)

What happens when the “responsibility” part of “fiscal responsibility” gets ignored? Folks whose homes have burned down in California are finding out.

What did cons think the “responsibility” stood for? I’ve always taken it to mean a responsibility to our communities — including issues like preparedness, safety and the like — and to each other, United We Stand.

Apparently these slash-taxes-and-burn cons disagree and don’t believe in responsibility or being united. They seem to prefer a go-it-alone approach of every man for himself… which doesn’t help when sparks from a wildfire lights up every single one of your neighbors’ homes, shops, churches, offices, etc.

Taxes are the investment we make in our communities. When we don’t invest in them adequately they begin to crumble and may turn to ash and dust, literally.

(Huge hat-tip to Robert in Monterey for explaining in a fact-based manner the role that conservatives played in the complete breakdown of planning and forethought leading up to the massive wildfires, just as they did in refusing to support minor tax increases for Minnesota’s bridges and infrastructure in the months before the Minneapolis bridge collapse…)

So, the first round of Doomsday is almost here. Technically, it arrives Sunday, but the full impact will not be felt until Monday. Pretty much everything that can be written about Doomsday has been written about Doomsday in places like thecapitolfaxblog, at chicagoist, at ctatattler, and in many other places.

But allow me to add some more to the discussion. This crisis has been building for years. The old, incompetent Frank Kreusi was warning about the coming of Doomsday years ago. He kept predicting Doomsday over the past couple of years, turning into the boy who cried wolf. I remember dire predictions of all service running on weekend schedules, and transit effectively grinding to a halt. Kruesi always resisted efforts to clean up the CTA’s act, and bought into the Mayor’s pony plans at the same time.

This created a great deal of skepticism in regards to the CTA’s plight. That CTA didn’t really need the money. After all, it was paying for pony plans like the superstation. Nevermind that Kreusi would never tell Daley no, and that the City and private developers are paying for most of the superstation. It’s a terrible idea, one that will make Daley look like the buffoon he is. But the CTA’s share is a relatively modest $25 million out of its capital funds. Most of the money is undoubtedly coming from the Mayor’s favorite slush accounts TIF funds.

Anyway, the CTA has been borrowing from Peter to pay Paul for years now. It doesn’t have the funds to operate at full capacity, so it raids it’s capital funds. That keeps the system running, pays salaries, buys fuel, pays to keep buses and trains running. But, that means that those same capital funds are not available for what they are supposed to be used for. That is, replacing track, replacing old buses, and buying new train cars.

Huberman has stunned me with his…competence as head of the CTA. I figured that he would just be another hack. But here’s a guy who has cut CTA operational costs way back, who found a way to pay to eliminate slow zones on the most dilapidated lines (the north side red and blue lines), and negotiated new union contracts to make pension and medical costs more palatable. The State’s Office of the Auditor General audited the CTA and RTA and found the systems to be run very efficiently, finding little cause for concern in terms of wasted resources.

In other words, Huberman has done everything he’s been asked to do and more. Kruesi predicted it would take a decade to eliminate the slow zones. Of course, the dilapidation that resulted in the slow zones was due to terrible management under Kruesi. The blue line subway slow zone is already eliminated, and the O’Hare highway extension zones will be eliminated by the end of 2008.

And, with Doomsday looming, it appears to be all for naught. Because Governor Blagojevich won’t play ball. Rep. Hamos has the best possible bill pending before the House to save the CTA, Metra, and Pace. It’s basically the solution that the Auditor General recommended. A quarter of a percent increase in sales taxes in the region serviced by the RTA, plus an increase in the real estate transfer tax in Chicago. The bill gives Chicago the ability to levy that extra tax, which will be passed to RTA for allocation to the CTA. The CTA’s funding needs will be mostly met by the real estate transfer tax. The sales tax primarily goes to Metra and Pace. Which means that Chicago taxpayers will actually be subsidizing suburban commuters, contrary to what anti-tax zealots like to say. Sales taxes paid by city dwellers will go to Metra and Pace riders, who are primarily suburban. Yes, there is some overlap, but some suburban people also ride the CTA.

Anyway, the Governor won’t abide an increase in the sales tax. And now, in the classic stylings of George Bush, he’s trying to pass the blame to the very people who have done everything they’ve been asked to do:

“If they turn down millions of dollars of help and force their riders to find other ways to get to work, then shame on the RTA and the CTA, and maybe there should be some new leadership in those two organizations,” Blagojevich said.
Yeah, that’s it governor. The RTA and Ron Huberman are at fault for this mess. Not you. Not the guy who has promised to veto the funding bill. The guys who did everything they were asked to do to reduce costs. Ron Huberman has been a godsend for the CTA. A rarity in Mayor Daley’s Chicago. A competent administrator. Of course he should be fired. Competency is a crime under Rod Blagojevich’s regime.

No Governor. It’s you that is to blame. You are the one who bears responsibility at the end of the day for this mess. No one else. Not the RTA Board. Not Ron Huberman. Not even the oaf on the fifth floor. You.

Who would have thought the day would arrive when Speaker Madigan looks like the good guy?

Doomsday is almost here. If you ride an express bus, start looking for another option. And it’ll just get worse in January (warning - pdf).

Update - Looks like another temporary reprieve…Doomsday is delayed until January…$21 27 million in federal capital dollars authorized for operating purposes…How much do you want to bet that we’re in the same position in 2 months?

A few weeks back I posted about a strange set of emails this blog had received from someone promoting Dan Proft’s work. Turned out those emails were coming from the same IP address as Mr. Proft’s office. That and a few other connections found in a quick Google search led me to wonder if this was a case of sockpuppetry or something else.

Even though others wondered if I was a weenie for removing it, at the time I thought it was the right thing to do because there was a possibility — however slight — that this person’s identity had been stolen (unwittingly or otherwise) and my post describing the strangeness was so much piling on.

Turns out it’s still happening.

My original post was published on Oct. 12th and my follow-up explaining why I removed it came on Oct. 15th.

As of Oct. 20th, Oct. 23rd and Oct. 30th … that same “person” is still found to be shilling for Mr. Proft at ilgopnet.com.

Imagine that.

You’d think if the person in question thought she was being “sandbagged” or had some question about what was going on in relation to her identity (or if Mr. Proft himself wanted to put a stop to what was being done, since they work in the same officespace) that it would’ve been ended by now.

Apparently the person in question was only concerned about being caught.

Sounds like a lot of the folks on the conservative side of the aisle these days.

For all those griping about the proposed Cook County sales tax increase (which I’ve thought was far-fetched from the get-go) …. There may not be a need to pour more water in the river.

Word out of Springfield is that Sen. Dan “The Tiger” Kotowski is working on legislation to cap the sales tax in Cook County and any increases over his proposed limit would require passage of a voter referendum. (Other counties in the state already do have a sales tax maximum.) It may be an uphill battle since certain factions on the county board have their allies in Springfield, and Cook County is a home rule county to begin with, but it’s at least a start.

This proposal would accomplish two things: First, it gives the voters the right to tell Todd or future county boards to shove it when they propose sales taxes above and beyond actual funding needs. And, second, it forces Cook County government to explain why it thinks any such money would be necessary in the first place.

This gets back to fundamental progressive values of both open, honest government and fiscal responsibility (not simply slash-and-burn tax cuts that cut to the bone). Even conservatives are beginning to appreciate these values found in Democratic leaders (as opposed to some of the hacks who simply use the “Democratic” label to get themselves into an office).

Don’t get me wrong. I understand that the taxes we pay are the membership dues needed to keep our country and our communities at the best they can be. It’s our responsibility to each other to ensure everyone’s contributing and investing their fair share. But, in a county with a budget larger than many countries, there’s bound to be a few areas ripe for pruning — as our conservative friends and others are fond of pointing out.

Sen. Kotowski, himself a Cook County resident, yet again proves the one-hit wonders who oppose him wrong by focusing on an issue other than gun safety… And may just help put up a firewall against wanton taxing in the County of Cook.

Full Disclosure: I’m volunteering for Sen. Kotowski’s reelection campaign and have endorsed him for election in the past. Despite the whining from a few of his nattering-nabob opponents on one, singular issue (most of whom don’t even live in our district), he’s a good guy. He’s also proving to be a smart and efficient legislator and, more importantly, a leader at getting good things done and passed into law. Sen. Kotowski’s doing more than just representing our district; he’s actually creating a new generation of leadership for our state.

Gee, I wonder if all the maroons who keep lying about Sen. Durbin’s Gitmo speech are going to start attacking the veteran Marine who helped defend the Haditha soldiers and who was later asked to be the chief of defense counsels for the prisoners held at Gitmo.

You see, this Lt. Colonel — with 20 years in the Corps and countless accolades for his service and integrity — is now leaving the only job he’s known, defending our nation, because he is “angry” and “bitter” (his words) over the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo and what he calls a “sham” of a legal system set up for them.

One of his clients is described thus by DKos front-pager Devilstower:

[A] 15 year-old Canadian client [accused of murdering a US soldier who] had been tortured into signing a confession, including being used a “human mop” to wipe his own urine off the floor after being left chained in painful positions for many hours at a time. (emphasis original)

Conserv-o-partisans who “love Gitmo” may think that’s fabulous. I think it’s un-American and disgusting that our soldiers would ever be asked to treat anyone like that — whether an enemy or not. We as a nation are better than this. Lt. Col. Colby Vokey and I apparently agree — he was fired as chief defense counsel and is now resigning from the Corps.

Lt. Col. Colby Vokey has been proud to serve and proud to follow the rule of law during his service. It is why he was asked to defend the soldiers accused in the Haditha massacre. Devilstower writes:

Vokey is also a self-described conservative who voted for Bush.  He’s the lead defense attorney in the trial of eight Marines involved in the massacre at Haditha, and became a hero to Marines for his vigorous defense of those involved.  After a lengthy argument, Vokey convinced the courts martial to drop most of the original charges against the Marines.

About his most recent assignment, Lt. Col. Vokey tells NPR:

The U.S. has imprisoned hundreds of “enemy combatants” at Guantanamo Bay in a military legal system that Vokey denounces as “horrific.” Vokey saw the system first-hand when he agreed two years ago to defend a teenager there who had been charged with murdering a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan. Vokey said he knew the case would be difficult, but he discovered that the legal system at Guantanamo is a “sham.”

 ”Anytime you want to subvert the rule of law to the power of a government, you’ve got a very bad thing brewing,” Vokey told NPR. “As an officer in the Marine Corps I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. And now we are perpetrating something that if any other country in the world was doing, we would likely step in and stop it.”

And when he was asked who he thought was responsible for this situation, NPR relates the story of Lt. Col. Vokey pulling out his copy of the Manual for Courts-Martial to read this passage from Article 88:

“Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, Vice President, Congress [...] shall be punished as a court martial may direct.”

Now, rather than the fictional bullcrap the cons keep regurgitating about Sen. Durbin’s speech, reality is:

…Durbin cited an FBI report describing Guantanamo Bay prisoners chained to the floor in the fetal position without food or water and sometimes in extreme temperatures.

“If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control,” he said, “you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings.”

Sounds very much like what Lt. Col. Vokey has to say about it.

Yes, what this current Commander-in-Chief has asked our nation’s defenses to do at Guantanamo is more like some horribly repressive and repugnant regime than the Shining City on a Hill our nation ought to be. That’s nobody’s fault but the conservative civilians in charge at the West Wing and Pentagon. In order to consider ourselves better than our enemies, we have to act and behave better than them. War may be hell, but there’s no reason our leaders have to force our nation into making hell on earth.

It is despicable that the conserv-o-partisans like Sen. Durbin’s opponent Dr. Steve Sauerberg would try to not just defend that sort of affront to America’s soul but also then lie about the people pointing out just how un-American it is.

In hopes of scoring more cheap political points, is Dr. Sauerberg planning to also rail against 20-year Marine Lt. Col. Vokey (a self-described conservative Bush voter) for agreeing with Sen. Durbin that what our conservative Republican president is doing at Gitmo is horrific?

Or will those dark scales finally fall from Dr. Sauerberg’s eyes to let him see that what the con “leadership” has set up at Gitmo is un-American and antithetical to liberty’s soul? Will he then denounce it as so many of us - conservative and liberal — who love our great nation already have?