Here it is again
Tuesday, Apr 12, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
Chicago Public Schools are in a cash crunch. Hundreds of teaching jobs could be cut, meaning class sizes would rise. Some special programs are also in jeopardy. Public school officials put next year’s budget deficit at $175 million. Consequently, some Chicago Public Schools teachers are cutting class Wednesday and heading for Springfield to ask legislators for more money. […]
Illinois ranks 49th out of 50 states when it comes to funding education. Teachers are organizing a huge lobbying campaign to convince state lawmakers that more money is needed now. If not, Chicago Public Schools says huge cuts at all schools are necessary.
Go here for an explanation of the title of this post. (Emphasis mine.)
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Laski
Tuesday, Apr 12, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
This is pretty old news, but the Tribune finally got around to it, so here it is:
James Laski, Chicago’s city clerk for the last decade, said Monday he is “leaning very strongly” toward running for state treasurer if Judy Baar Topinka decides to vacate the office to run for governor.
“Everything is based on what [Topinka] does,” Laski said. “She is the incumbent and I personally like the woman.” Although Topinka is a Republican and he is a Democrat, “I have a good relationship with her and I think she does a good job,” Laski said. […]
Laski recently terminated his Laski for City Clerk political fund, transferring the money it contained to a new James J. Laski Jr. Campaign Committee. He has about $400,000 on hand.
Laski, 51, acknowledged that he is not well known Downstate.
“That’s the point of getting into it early,” he said.
What do you think of his chances?
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Just for fun
Tuesday, Apr 12, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
Here’s Dick Mell’s full statement about the governor’s plan to forbid his relatives from owning landfills (via the Sun-Times):
Once again, Gov. Blagojevich is using the power of his office to have state legislators introduce a bill aimed at the mistaken notion that I have a financial interest in a business owned and operated by a relative of my wife, Margaret.
According to sources in Springfield, a bill on a specific industry will be sent to the state Legislature which, if enacted, will unfairly target owners of the landfill industry. I have been told that the Illinois EPA scoffed when they saw the first draft, saying it was too riddled with problems to even be considered.
Although I am not a lawyer like the governor, it seems to me such laws are unconstitutional or border on such. Perhaps this maneuver is meant to deflect attention away from the real issues concerning citizens of the State of Illinois: overcrowded classrooms and inadequate resources that threaten to doom another generation of our young people.
The crisis at the Chicago Transit Authority demands action, yet the governor is noncommittal about assistance from the state. The alternatives are grim. Drastic service cuts or massive fare increases face a ridership dependent on buses and trains to get to school, shopping areas and, most importantly, work.
Somehow, the governor does not see the urgency in these matters, yet is so consumed with a single issue that he is laser-focused on our own family tragedy instead of serving the interests of the 12 million others he is supposed to represent. If this were a melodrama, the situation would be comical. But there is no laughter.
I truly sought to have this matter melt from public view. However, the governor’s pollsters have obviously convinced him that there is still mileage in this diatribe. Many years ago, I accepted the fact that all publicity — good or bad — went with the territory of being an elected public official. But I never imagined this.
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Interesting
Tuesday, Apr 12, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
Are the VOIP people getting a bad rap?
The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is proposing legislation to get Internet-based phone providers to give customers the same kind of access to 911 operators as those who use regular telephone lines. […]
In the back of everyone’s mind is the incident this past February 3 rd in Houston, where 17-year-old Joyce John called 911 using Internet phone provider Vonage to report that her parents had been shot by home intruders. She got a recording telling her that access to 911 service was unavailable. Help took more than 10 minutes to arrive. Both parents survived.
It was later established that the Johns had multiple opportunities and reminders from Vonage to activate Vonage’s 9-1-1 service but had not done so. In a blatantly emotional vote-troll, the Texas attorney general sued Vonage after the incident, probably since you don’t win many votes suing registered voters who haven’t followed Vonage’s directions on how to activate their 9-1-1.
The FCC warns on its Web site that it “may be difficult” for Internet phone customers to “seamlessly connect” with 911 dispatch centers. According to Blagojevich’s office, that’s because traditional phone companies have not given Internet phone providers access to more than 3,200 emergency call centers nationwide.
Blagojevich spokesman Gerardo Cardenas said the governor said the companies need to figure out how to solve that problem. “We’re not getting into that debate,” he said. “What matters here is when you need police or an ambulance, it has to get there immediately.”
CNet’s report says in a sign that regulators take the problem seriously, the Federal Communications Commission has quietly met with the Bell operating companies to learn why they’ve yet to grant Net phone providers unfettered access to their 911 telephone infrastructure, and by doing so let them offer a competitive 911 service. […]
Sources told CNet that U.S. lawmakers are now being asked to draft rules requiring the Bells open their 911 infrastructure to Net phone providers.
One Man takes a different angle on the same subject. Both are worth reading. (Emphasis added above.)
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Ray LaWolf
Tuesday, Apr 12, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
Destined to be an Internet favorite.
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Breaking news
Tuesday, Apr 12, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
A proposal to increase high school graduation requirements was passed by an Illinois Senate committee today.
The bill would require students to take additional math, science, English and writing courses before graduating.
Senator Miguel del Valle (me-GELL’ del VAH’-yay) says many schools meet the standards already, but it is still important to strengthen them.
The bill is part of the education plan Governor Rod Blagojevich (bluh-GOY’-uh-vich) announced last month. Blagojevich wants to raise standards and pay for it by letting riverboat casinos expand.
The measure approved by the Education Committee does not say how the state would pay for the new standards. It now goes to the Senate floor.
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Question of the day
Tuesday, Apr 12, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
Considering what happened in the ‘04 Senate primary, does Comptroller Dan Hynes get a serious general election opponent next year? If not, why not, and if so, who do you think that might be?
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Sitting pretty
Tuesday, Apr 12, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
Yet another battle heats up, and this one puts the governor right where he wants to be.
Both sides are preparing for what may turn into a legal battle over Gov. Blagojevich’s order that pharmacists dispense contraceptives, even those that some pharmacists say kill embryos.
The Illinois Pharmacists Association asked Blagojevich to rescind his order. State Rep. Ron Stephens, a Downstate pharmacist, said, “I will not abide by it.” The conservative Family PAC is urging pharmacists to ignore the order. And Catholic Bishop Thomas Paprocki implored Blagojevich from the pulpit to rescind the order.
The governor is standing firm.
On Monday, he warned Family PAC Director Paul Caprio the state would impose “significant penalties” on any pharmacy that ignores the order.
He’ll play this one to the hilt. He’s inflamed, if not actually started, his own little culture war right here in Illinois. And, on this one, the public is most likely solidly behind the Democrat.
I gotta admit that I’m gaining more respect for his abilities every day. I don’t agree with the way he’s always looking to push a moral hot button (as he defines it), but that certainly makes him a different sort of Democrat.
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Can’t we all just get along?
Tuesday, Apr 12, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
Oh, wow, the governor really stuck it to the old man this time.
The bad blood is reaching a rolling boil again between Ald. Richard Mell and his son-in-law, the governor.
After staying quiet for two months about his strained ties to Gov. Blagojevich, Mell is furious at the governor’s new legislative assault on the landfill industry — a maneuver the 33rd Ward alderman said is “laser-focused on our own family tragedy.”
Legislation filed in the Senate Monday by Blagojevich’s forces includes a provision that would bar — among others — relatives of the governor, including his father-in-law, from having any financial stake in landfills or receiving any “personal financial benefit” from waste-disposal operators.
I particularly enjoyed this line:
“This has nothing to do with the alderman,” Blagojevich spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff said. “He’s said that he has no involvement or no interest in any landfills, so he won’t even be impacted.”
She got him there.
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Department of redundancy department
Tuesday, Apr 12, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
Here is the text of the bill to exempt religious institutions from a law that they are already exempted from.
And, as promised in today’s Capitol Fax, Here is the article from the Alliance Defense Fund’s website that knocks down the argument that churches were ever covered by the employment provisions of the gay rights law.
Churches are still exempt from the Illinois Human Rights Act even after Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed into law a Senate bill Friday that added “sexual orientation†as a protected class, according to attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund.
“Contrary to comments made by the bill’s sponsor, no changes were made to the law that would make it applicable to churches,†explained ADF attorney Joel Oster, referring to comments recently made by Illinois Sen. Carol Ronen. According to numerous media reports, Ronen addressed the subject of the law’s applicability to the Catholic Church by saying, “If that is their goal, to discriminate against gay people, this law wouldn’t allow them to do thatâ€
Oster disputes Ronen’s claim. “Despite the ‘wishes’ of the bill’s sponsor, the bill is inapplicable to churches in the employment context,†he stated Monday after analyzing the issue. […]
ADF is America’s largest legal alliance defending religious liberty through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.
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MIA
Tuesday, Apr 12, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
Whatever happened to these guys?
I thought it was an entertaining blog.
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