* I am all for toning down the national political rhetoric. Count me in. I’ve written about it quite often. But a line was crossed into PC surrealism yesterday.
Last night, Andy Shaw of the Better Government Association appeared on CNN to talk about the Chicago mayor’s race. Shaw said this about Rahm Emanuel’s opponents…
Rahm is in both of their crosshairs.
19 minutes later, CNN’s John King, who had been conducting the interview, issued this apology…
Before we go to break, I want to make a quick point. We were just having a discussion about the Chicago mayoral race. Just a moment ago, my friend Andy Shaw, who now works for a good government group out there, used the term ‘in the crosshairs,’ in talking about the candidates out there. We’re trying- we’re trying to get away from that language. Andy is a good friend. He’s covered politics for a long time, but we’re trying to get away from using that kind of language. We won’t always be perfect. So, hold us accountable when we don’t meet your standards.
Political and military terms have been interchangeable throughout history. I, for one, don’t use “crosshairs,” but I do use the word “target” on a regular basis. Would that get me called out on CNN? Not that I’d ever go on a cable news net. I can’t stand any of them, and yesterday’s nonsense just reinforces my beliefs.
So… [deep breath]… let us all do our best to respect each other (except when dealing with Packer fans) and treat each other with common decency. But, most of all, let’s not insult each other’s intelligence with the sort of goofiness that CNN exhibited yesterday. In other words, let’s start acting like adults for a change.
Former Chicago Ald. Edward Vrdolyak reported to federal prison in Terre Haute this morning, Bureau of Prisons officials confirmed.
Vrdolyak was sentenced in October to 10 months in prison for a mail fraud conviction tied to a $1.5 million kickback he pocketed in a crooked Gold Coast real-estate deal. […]
Under federal sentencing guidelines, Vrdolyak will have to serve the entire 10 months, officials said.
He surrendered to a minimum-security prison camp in Terre Haute, where former Illinois Gov. George Ryan is serving a 6 ½-year prison sentence for corruption.
* Carol Moseley Braun apparently believes that Martin Luther King’s birthday is so holy that nobody should desecrate it the day after…
“For [former President Bill Clinton] to come on the day following Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday to insert himself in the middle of a mayoral race, when the majority of the population and mayoral candidates are African-American and Latino, is a betrayal of the people who were most loyal to him,” Braun, former Democratic senator from Illinois, said in a statement. “It’s a mistake.”
Dr. King was a great man and he should be revered every day. But that had to have been one of the more desperate cheap shots of the entire season.
* Braun reportedly shook up her campaign staff this week…
Mike Noonan, a former top aide to House Speaker Michael Madigan who served as Braun’s campaign manager, will keep his title but play a new role. He will oversee Braun’s ground game with a little over a month to go before the Feb. 22 election. Noonan will manage 150 canvassers who will go door-to-door to reach potential Braun supporters and another 150 who will works the phones, according to Renee Ferguson, Braun’s spokeswoman.
Ferguson said the re-organization is due to an influx of staffers who left the short-lived mayoral campaigns of state Sen. James Meeks and U.S. Rep. Danny Davis. Braun also will begin shooting her campaign ads, Ferguson said.
Despite the spin, from what I can gather Noonan will run the campaign and Louanner Peters will handle Braun. Peters was a top Blagojevich official who was no stranger to controversy, but Braun apparently listens to her. That is no small feat.
Mr. Clinton, who told his audience of a 20-year relationship with Mr. Emanuel, pulled out his own memoir, “My Life,” and read from a section in which he had described Mr. Emanuel’s departure from the White House, and return to Congress from a district in Chicago — “the city,” Mr. Clinton read, “he thought should be capital of the world.”
Which may be why he’s running for mayor. But Luis Gutierrez begs to differ…
CF: Why does Rahm Emanuel want to be mayor?
LG: Because he can’t be speaker of the House.
* Gutierrez is doing a robocall for Gery Chico. Listen…
This is Congressman Luis Gutierrez calling to ask you to support Gery Chico for Mayor of Chicago. Gery Chico will be a jobs Mayor who fights for working families. Gery has a record of putting people to work. As Mayor, he’ll be on your side – a leader from our neighborhoods with a jobs plan for our neighborhoods. His opponent, Rahm Emanuel, led the fight for NAFTA and against labor unions. Emanuel’s support for big business led to hundreds of thousands of lost jobs. Emanuel’s fight for NAFTA hurt workers and we can’t trust him to stand up for us as Mayor. For Mayor, the choice is clear. Rahm Emanuel let us down. Gery Chico will fight for us.
* Speaking of boring, Emanuel’s completely forgettable monotone voice in his TV ads was finally broken up a bit in his latest spot, where his voice wavers just a little…
* Chico will receive an endorsement today from the Chicago police union. Should be a big boost. He also blasted Emanuel yesterday…
Clinton appointed Emanuel to mortgage giant Freddie Mac’s board in 2000. Emanuel served when Freddie Mac misstated its earnings by $5 billion for 2000-2002. When the problem was uncovered in 2003, top executives were forced out.
Chico alleges Emanuel had a chance to blow the whistle but looked the other way. He called on Emanuel on Tuesday to answer more questions about what he knew.
An Emanuel spokesman says Chico’s claims aren’t credible.
*** UPDATE *** From a press release, Emanuel is dreaming…
Rahm’s plan would cut Chicago’s portion of the sales tax by 20 percent – from 1.25% to 1% – while working with state legislators to expand the tax base by closing the loopholes that allow luxury goods to go untaxed. These goods – like private club memberships, pet grooming, limo services, tanning parlors and interior design services – evade paying their fair share under the current system. Taken together with County action to return its sales tax rate to 2008 levels, these changes will reduce the sales tax in Chicago to 9% from the current 9.75% by 2013.
The General Assembly just raised the income tax. It ain’t gonna institute a brand new service tax now. It should’ve done that before, frankly. But doing it now would cause them even more trouble than they currently have. This is a phony plan.
* From a press release, Gov. Pat Quinn and that unmentionable Packer governor to the North have settled on their Sunday bet…
Under the agreement, the winning team’s Governor will host the losing team’s Governor as he volunteers at a food pantry in the winner’s state. While volunteering, the visiting Governor will wear a t-shirt of the winning team. In addition, the losing Governor must also fly the opposing team’s flag in his office on the day before the Super Bowl.
* The Question: What do you think Mayor Daley and whatever the yokel’s name is who runs Green Bay should bet on?
* NBC5’s blog covered a recall effort against Gov. Pat Quinn the other day…
It’s only the first week of his first elected term, but already Gov. Pat Quinn is the subject of at least one recall effort.
Motivating the online petition is the state’s new income tax hike, which raises the personal rate from three percent to five percent. Quinn signed the bill into law earlier Thursday.
Neil A. Wurzer, purportedly of Olympia Fields, Ill., according to his Change.org profile, says the governor “has failed to protect the fiscal integrity of the state” and is “governing against the will of the people.”
The recall legislation that Illinoisans passed in the November election offers the means for the removal of the governor. The question is how much longer must our legislators wait to see what Quinn does before they take action.
I say no longer.
If you paid attention to Quinn’s tenure since Rod Blagojevich’s impeachment, you’ve seen enough. You’ve seen Quinn turn prisoners free to roam the streets of Illinois and commit further crimes. You’ve seen him give his staff and other high-ranking Illinois officials raises – raises! – as the state’s deficit spiked. You saw him leverage payments to the state’s nonprofits against an income tax increase.
There is nothing left to see.
Yeah, we just inaugurated Quinn on Tuesday. But it’s not too early to get the recall petitions circulating.
* Actually, Chris, it is too early to circulate recall petitions. From the Illinois Constitution…
A petition shall have been signed by the petitioning electors not more than 150 days after an affidavit has been filed with the State Board of Elections providing notice of intent to circulate a petition to recall the governor. The affidavit may be filed no sooner than 6 months after the beginning of the Governor’s term of office.
In other words, they can’t even start collecting petition signatures for six months. And before they can file their affidavit announcing their intent to circulate petitions, they have to do this…
The affidavit shall have been signed by the proponent of the recall petition, at least 20 members of the House of Representatives, and at least 10 members of the Senate, with no more than half of the signatures of members of each chamber from the same established political party.
And when that little, no-brainer effort is achieved, they have to do this…
The recall of the Governor may be proposed by a petition signed by a number of electors equal in number to at least 15% of the total votes cast for Governor in the preceding gubernatorial election, with at least 100 signatures from each of at least 25 separate counties.
And they have to gather those signatures in 150 days.
Hopefully, the rest of the media won’t go ga-ga on this unless somebody actually puts together a real effort and can show they can get all those legislative signatures and can prove they have an operation in place to gather 560,000 valid petition signatures in five months, with 100 signatures from at least 25 separate counties.
* From the University of Illinois’ Institute of Government and Public Affairs, we have this graph showing state deficits with the tax hike (in blue) and without the tax hike (in red) through Fiscal Year 2022. Click the pic for a larger image…
That’s quite a huge deficit without that tax hike.
The reason there is still a deficit in the IGPA’s graph even with the tax hike is that the state has not yet passed the bonding bill to pay off its overdue bills. And the deficit spikes again when the tax hike is set to expire.
The IGPA is also concerned with the state’s new expenditure caps, noting that non General Funds accounts could be used to get around them.
* Meanwhile, Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka wants to change the way the state pays those overdue bills…
Topinka said she’ll ask lawmakers for the power to set up a process that would pay human service providers, hospitals and others at least part of what they’re owed in a regular, predictable way. That way they wouldn’t have to wait months, not knowing when a state check might come.
“I’d love to get them everything, but we don’t have that kind of money,” Topinka said.
Topinka says she can identify at least $1 billion in painless budget cuts – eliminating duplication, anachronisms and padding that no one would ever miss.
I asked for her list of that billion dollars in painless, nobody-will-miss-them cuts. Her office says they’re working on it.
* Jimmy John Liautaud, the founder of the Jimmy John’s sandwich store chain headquartered in Champaign, has rented a house in Florida and enrolled his students in school there because he’s furious about the state tax hike…
“All they do is stick it to us,” he said, adding that the Legislature and governor showed “a clear lack of understanding.”
“I could absorb this and adapt, but it doesn’t feel good in my soul to make it happen,” Liautaud said.[…]
Liautaud said he has been contacted by “multiple pro-business states” that made him feel “wanted and important.”
“I enjoy being courted and the process,” he said.
The company employs 100 people at its Champaign headquarters. The board of directors will decide later whether to move the company. Liautaud told the News-Gazette that he plans to commute from Florida to Champaign during the interim.
The tax hike was apparently the last straw. He was picketed by local unions for using non-union labor to build a shop not long ago. He wasn’t happy about that…
He said he’s sick of being “pummeled.”
“I’m not sophisticated enough, smart enough or politically correct enough to absorb it all,” he said.
* And while other states are scrambling to create maximum fear and loathing among Illinois business owners, our state’s economic outreach program took it on the chin when its top guy got popped for a DUI…
The director of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity was arrested for allegedly driving under the influence in his personal vehicle last week.
Warren C. Ribley, 53, of Pajim Lane was taken to the Sangamon County Jail following a traffic stop at MacArthur Boulevard and Wabash Avenue.
Great. Just great. This state can’t buy a break. Just when we need him most, Ribley gets himself in trouble.
* Meanwhile, Gov. Scott Walker is using Illinois’ tax hike and a proposed Minnesota tax hike to gin up the locals and keep the story alive…
Governor Scott Walker traveled around the state today to unveil additions to the signs that welcome people as they cross the state borders. Laura Podgornik reports from Superior.
Construction workers placed red “Open for Business” plaques onto the four “Welcome to Wisconsin” signs in Beloit, Dickeyville, Hudson, and Superior. Walker says he hopes the signs will attract businesses to move into Wisconsin and help bolster the state economy.
“The biggest issue is jobs I hear that all the time when I’m up here in Douglas County and really in the Northwest in Ashland, in Bayfield, in Burnett and surrounding counties. It’s about jobs. It’s about getting the economy going again. So what we’re talking about not only with the sign but is making it more attractive for job creators to continue to grow and invest here and for that matter, for those from other states to find it attractive to bring their jobs here.”
Walker says he is unveiling the signs in light of tax hikes in Illinois but he hopes to attract businesses from all bordering states including businesses based in Duluth.
Chicago business leaders still smarting over Illinois lawmakers’ decision to raise personal and corporate income taxes were greeted Tuesday by Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard’s smiling mug in their morning newspaper. A full-page ad purchased by a city economic development group in the Chicago Tribune — and two other downstate newspapers — extolled our fair city’s friendlier business climate.
Soon, business execs might see billboards hyping the Hoosier state’s lower tax rates while they sit in Chicago traffic.
But as state and city economic development leaders compete with surrounding states to capitalize on Illinois’ tax mess, there is one line that Indiana Secretary of Commerce Mitch Roob says he won’t cross as the state contemplates its own ad campaign.
Slapping ads on the side of Chicago city buses — well, that would just be unseemly.
I’m not sure I’d sell them a blog ad, either. Although, if the price is right…
St. Louis-based Bill O’Grady, chief investment strategist for Confluence Investment Management, said this increase is different than 2008, when gas topped $4 a gallon. At that point, part of the problem was because of the way some areas of the country required “almost custom tailoring” in the formulation of their gas. Now it’s the need for oil to fuel China and India.
“Unlike the last time we had a spike, this one is almost entirely crude oil driven,” O’Grady said.
If just-released International Energy Agency forecasts that global use will require 89 million barrels of oil a day prove true, that will stretch the existing capacity.
“It’s going to drive the price of oil higher,” he said. “We’ve got a problem developing. And really, it’s a global one.”
* Another fur coat missing from Inaugural Ball turns up
The owner of a $7,000 mink coat that disappeared from the coat check area during the Jan. 10 ball told the Springfield Police Department over the weekend that an anonymous person contacted her and arranged to ship the coat back to her. It was unclear how the person with the coat tracked down the owner, who lives in Springfield.
Another coat, a $2,000 cashmere one with a faux fur hood, was reported missing or stolen from the coat check but was found at the end of the night when workers searched the area. Best Expo, the contractor that handled the coat check operation at the Prairie Capital Convention Center that night, told police it would make arrangements to ship the garment to the owner in Quincy.
A third coat — a $5,000 mink coat — remains missing.
As part of a massive deal that has been in the works for nearly two years, state officials announced Tuesday that they’ve inked a final pact with Northstar Lottery Group to run the lottery.
Northstar, which is comprised of three companies that already do business with the state, has said it could generate about $1.5 billion more over the next five years than what the lottery projects it would normally generate.
* Private managers to take over Illinois Lottery in July, state says
The two losing bidders, Intralot and Camelot Illinois, protested the award. The Department of Revenue countered that the bidding was handled properly and that the protests should be rejected. Protest Officer George Logan rejected both the Intralot and Camelot protests Friday.
Logan said Camelot failed to prove “fraud, lack of authority, unfair dealing, favoritism or other arbitrary conduct on the part of the purchasing entity.” Without that proof, he said, the protest cannot be upheld.
Logan also said Camelot missed deadlines for filing some of its protests.
After serving less than a year on a federal corruption conviction, ex-Niles Mayor Nicholas Blase has been released from the prison camp in Duluth.
Blase, 82, was transferred from the Minnesota tundra to a halfway house on Chicago’s West Side just before Christmas, prison officials and a family member confirmed.
* Environmentalists salute Daley, challenge next mayor to do more - Coalition of environmental groups says there is much for the next mayor to accomplish
