*** UPDATED x1 *** OK, this may balance things out with Minnesota
Wednesday, Jul 13, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller * Believe it or not, an Illinois town has actually passed a law dictating to its citizens how they must wear their trousers…
Are the coppers going to carry tape measures so that when they line up the kids they can make sure everybody’s in strict compliance? Amazing. Read on…
There’s some logic for you. * Collinsville Mayor John Miller tried to stop the goofiness, but to no avail…
What is it with some folks who hate the government unless it’s being used to suppress an activity (or a group of people) they don’t like? *** UPDATE *** A large majority of a nearby town may actually be nuts. From the Belleville News-Democrat’s unscientific reader poll… ![]()
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Question of the day
Wednesday, Jul 13, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller * The setup…
* The Question: With this latest development, can Illinois finally shed its image as the most screwed up state in the nation? Snark is heavily encouraged, of course.
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Despite union battles, Quinn helps DGA set fundraising record
Wednesday, Jul 13, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller * Back on March 1st, when the Wisconsin labor protests were still raging strong, the Democratic Governors Association announced that Gov. Pat Quinn would be their new finance chairman. Quinn’s strong fundraising record the previous year among unions, particularly public sector unions, was a major asset at the time, and a counterpoint to what was happening in Wisconsin, Ohio and other states with Republican governors…
* That relationship has since soured, of course. And as subscribers found out several weeks ago, Quinn’s legislative push to strip some state workers of their union cards and prevent others from joining the union brought a nasty little rebuke from the the AFL-CIO, which ominously tied the issue to DGA’s fundraising…
Trumka’s involvement set off some serious alarm bells. But, so far at least, this conflict hasn’t impeded DGA fundraising. In fact, the group just broke its own six-month fundraising record…
The Republican Governors Association doubled the DGA take, by the way. The governor is heading for Salt Lake City tomorrow for another DGA fundraiser. * Meanwhile, Gov. Quinn appears to be getting around the state’s new individual fundraising cap by soliciting contributions from husbands and wives at the same time. For instance… ![]() * In other “campaign” news, former state Rep. Mike Boland continues to get lots of media coverage for saying he hasn’t made a decision yet…
You gotta give the guy credit. I mean, heck, Cheri Bustos announced last night that she planned to kick off her congressional campaign today and was barely covered at all. * But Boland is an amateur compared to Congressman Bobby Schilling. First, he leaked a little item to a Rockford TV station that he would be in town last weekend…
* Then, Schilling showed up in Rockford and told the same TV station that he wouldn’t be campaigning in his new district…
Yeah, he was just watching a ballgame. Sure. * Other stuff…
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Lots of news from the labor front…
Wednesday, Jul 13, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller * This was an interesting development…
* The announcement came the same day as this related story broke…
* Meanwhile, the new state workers’ comp reform law required firing all the arbitrators. Some of them have filed suit…
* And Phil Kadner was not impressed with AFSCME’s informational picket yesterday…
Even so, Kadner concluded that the workers should get their promised raises. * Related…
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Jonah Edelman’s blunt talk freaks out almost everybody
Wednesday, Jul 13, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller * I told subscribers about this on Monday, but it broke bigtime over the weekend on an education-related blog published by Fred Klonsky. Here’s the Sun-Times story…
* The Tribune’s lede was quite good…
* Edelman’s speech is now transcribed online. From his remarks…
* One of the other bones of contention was what Edelman said about the CTU’s inability to strike…
* But the CTU’s past performance was looked at by Catalyst…
The union will need 75 percent of all eligible members to vote for a strike. It looks pretty darned difficult to me. Then again, the CTU didn’t have to get that sort of turnout in the past. They could structure a strike vote to really anger and fire up their membership. * Back to the transcript…
* Tribune…
* The IEA, IFT and CTU released a joint statement yesterday on Edelman’s comments…
* Transcript…
* Tribune…
* Edelman apologized over the weekend…
* But the IEA was not impressed…
* Jonah Edelman’s full remarks at the Aspen Institute are here… * You can see most of the “juicy bits” here…
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Caption contest!
Wednesday, Jul 13, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller * I’ve debated for a few days about whether to post this, but in the end decided that I simply could not resist. Sen. Martin Sandoval and Senate President John Cullerton posed for a recent photograph… ![]() Please, keep it clean and printable, people. Have fun, but don’t get yourself banned. Winner gets a free ticket to the July 25th White Sox game.
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Protected: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Today’s edition of Capitol Fax (use all CAPS in password)
Wednesday, Jul 13, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller
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