8 Comments - Bill Baar - Wednesday, Feb 14, 07 @ 8:24 am: Drudge quoting Dowd as saying the start in Iowa something less than stellar, Dowd claims that no fewer than three times last week, Obama got indignant about the beach-babe attention given to a shot of him in the Hawaiian surf. “You’ve been reporting on how I look in a swimsuit,” Obama lectured a reporter. Dowd snaps: “He poses for the cover of MEN’S VOGUE and then gets huffy when people don’t treat him as Hannah Arendt.” - Cassandra - Wednesday, Feb 14, 07 @ 8:51 am: Too bad about the state’s attorneys and public defenders. This budget crisis is probably our last chance for a while to reform our Cook County arrest and sentencing practices which guarantee that if diversion (including home monitoring until court date ) is an option, it is rarely used because it’s a threat to the bureaucracy. Nonviolent offenders are a huge cash cow for the Cook (and state of Illinois corrections) bureaucracy, engendering thousands of patronage jobs at the County and state levels. Apparently, even the minority communities which bear the brunt of these arrest and sentencing practices have been co-opted. The interest of the taxpayers in a criminal justice system which uses (espensive) incarceration only as a last resort, especially at the pretrial phase, when nothing has been proven, are, as usual, ignored. As to Deborah Sims’ sales tax proposal..that should be amusing. I can guarantee that I will only buy taxable items in Cook if it’s an emergency should this occur. On the other hand, the business community, while screeching loudly about the gross receipts tax possibility, has been largely silent about a Cook sales tax increase.Maybe they know something we don’t know….that once again, at the end of February, the burden of supporting the huge Cook County porker will fall on the property owners of Cook. And the porker won’t be going on a diet. - fedup dem - Wednesday, Feb 14, 07 @ 1:22 pm: I find swingstate’s comments mildly amusing. Talk about counting your chickens before they are hatched! For now, I would simply say that we should until the Democratic hopefuls start debating and someone tosses out Obama’s support of political clowns like Toddler Stroger. For all I know, I could be seeing Barack Obama standing at my CTA station THREE years from now, asking for support in his bid for renomination to the US Senate. - vole - Wednesday, Feb 14, 07 @ 2:28 pm: How does the Gov’s edict on reducing carbon dioxide jive with his efforts to promote the mining and burning of Illinois coal? - PMcgrath - Wednesday, Feb 14, 07 @ 7:53 pm: How does one go about getting a copy of the “alternative balanced budget plan” released today for Cook County?? Thanks! - DavidNYC - Wednesday, Feb 14, 07 @ 10:32 pm: Please note that the link in this post was to a comment at Swing State Project, not a post by the editors. - Rich Miller - Wednesday, Feb 14, 07 @ 10:44 pm: DavidNYC, your comment is correct, but not complete. The body of the original post includes this… ===Some other possibilities (for women candidates): Illinois - Lisa Madigan (If Obama is P/VP)==== - Snidely Whiplash - Wednesday, Feb 14, 07 @ 11:41 pm: More from the Land of Nepostism: Illinoisians hold their breath in anticipation as they await the annointing of either Mike Madigan’s kid or Tom Hynes’ kid as the next unelected high official, to hold office until his or her own kids grow up. This state stinks! Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.