* State Rep. La Shawn Ford (D-Chicago) sponsored a resolution this week “in support of the continued peaceful exercise of First Amendment rights by Occupy protestors.”
During the discussion, State Rep. Rosemary Mulligan (R-Park Ridge) said constituents have told her they’re afraid to go downtown to see the Christmas parade because of Occupy Chicago. “These people should not be honored on the Illinois House floor,” she said.
Rep. Ed Sullivan (R) pointed to HR 610’s Line 19, which he said, says the Occupiers are “lawfully protesting” Wall Street. Sullivan said, “Do you recognize the violence, the crime at these protests? This protest movement is un-American. If you don’t believe in capitalism, then vote for this. I will not stand for it.” […]
Rep Dennis Reboletti (R-) got a little more heated as he asked Rep. Ford, “How many arrests at Occupy Chicago? There’s been over 130 arrests … that’s far from peaceful,” Reboletti said. “We, of course, support the right to protest peacefully. But where are you condemning their bad actions?
“I saw what the media did to the Tea Party movement when they peacefully assembled and they were attacked for all the bad things that they were doing,” Reboletti said to Ford. “The Occupy movement is not lawful, peaceful assembly. This resolution also talks about your feelings and the 1% and class warfare.”
The Chicago arrests were for trespassing at Grant Park after hours. There has been no violence in Chicago.
Rep. Ed Sullivan Jr. called the protesters “un-American.’’ The Mundelein Republican says he has seen reports of them “raping and pillaging and beating people up and murdering.’’
* Not that I’m an expert on this topic or anything, but pot smoking can make you paranoid. It also forces you to slow down. So this study which shows a 9 percent decrease in traffic fatalities associated with local medical marijuana laws isn’t all that surprising…
Laboratory studies have shown that cannabis use impairs driving-related functions such as distance perception, reaction time, and hand-eye coordination. However, neither simulator nor driving-course studies provide consistent evidence that these impairments to driving-related functions lead to an increased risk of collision. Drivers under the influence of marijuana reduce their velocity, avoid risky maneuvers, and increase their “following distances,” suggesting compensatory behavior. In addition, there appears to be an important learning-by-doing component to driving under the influence of marijuana: experienced users show substantially less functional impairment than infrequent users.
Like marijuana, alcohol impairs driving-related functions such as reaction time and hand-eye coordination. Moreover, there is unequivocal evidence from simulator and driving-course studies that alcohol consumption leads to an increased risk of collision. Even at low doses, drivers under the influence of alcohol tend to underestimate the degree to which they are impaired, drive at faster speeds, and take more risks.
Alcohol consumption appears to play a key role. The legalization of medical marijuana is associated with a 6.4 percent decrease in fatal crashes that did not involve alcohol, but this estimate is not statistically significant at conventional levels. In comparison, the legalization of medical marijuana is associated with an almost 12 percent decrease in any-BAC fatal crashes per 100,000 licensed drivers, and an almost 14 percent decrease in high-BAC fatal crashes per 100,000 licensed drivers.
The negative relationship between legalization of medical marijuana and traffic fatalities involving alcohol is consistent with the hypothesis that marijuana and alcohol are substitutes. In order to explore this hypothesis further, we examine the relationship between medical marijuana laws and alcohol consumption using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and The Brewer’s Almanac. We find that the legalization of medical marijuana is associated with decreased alcohol consumption, especially by 20- through 29-year-olds. In addition, we find that legalization is associated with decreased beer sales, the most popular alcoholic beverage among young adults (Jones 2008).
In their book Marijuana Is Safer… Steve Fox, Mason Tvert, and Paul Armentano cite marijuana’s relatively minor impact on driving ability as a public safety advantage. To the extent that legalizing pot encourages people to shift from alcohol to marijuana, it could actually produce a net decrease in traffic deaths, contrary to the nightmare scenarios painted by prohibitionists.
(A) 1993 trial funded by the United States National Highway Traffic Association (NTHSA) evaluated subjects’ driving performance after cannabis inhalation in high-density urban traffic. Investigators reported, “Marijuana … did not significantly change mean driving performance. […]
A more recent assessment by Blows and colleagues noted that self-reported recent use of cannabis (within three hours of driving) was not significantly associated with car crash injury after investigators controlled for specific cofounders (e.g., seat-belt use, sleepiness, etc.). A 2004 observational case control study published in the journal Accident, Analysis and Prevention reported that only drivers under the influence of alcohol or benzodiazepines experience an increased crash risk compared to drug-free controls. Investigators did observe increased risks – though they were not statistically significant – among drivers using amphetamines, cocaine and opiates, but found, “No increased risk for road trauma was found for drivers exposed to cannabis. […]
A 2007 case-control study published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health reviewed 10-years of US auto-fatality data. Investigators found that US drivers with blood alcohol levels of 0.05% – a level well below the legal limit for intoxication – were three times as likely to have engaged in unsafe driving activities prior to a fatal crash as compared to individuals who tested positive for marijuana.
* Switching people from booze to pot has other benefits…
“According to government statistics,” they write, “more than 40 percent of murderers in jail or state prison report that they had been drinking at the time of their offenses, and nearly one-half of those convicted of assault and sentenced to probation had been drinking when the offenses occurred. Further, among those who have suffered an assault at the hands of an intimate partner, about two out of three say that alcohol played a role in the violent behavior.”
Although opponents of legalization argue that it encourages recreational use among teenagers (Brady et al. 2011; O’Keefe and Earleywine 2011), we find no evidence that the use of marijuana by minors increased.
[State Journal-Register publisher Walt Lafferty’s] disclosure came during a recent newsroom meeting called to discuss the efforts of GateHouse Media, the newspaper’s owner, to turn around sagging financial fortunes. GateHouse stock, which sold for more than $20 a share during the initial public offering five years ago, is virtually worthless, selling for as little as four cents a share last week. The company has more than $1 billion in debt due in 2014.
Lafferty told the news staff that he will likely contact a broker about selling the building after Jan. 1, according to multiple sources who attended the meeting.
“He said ‘I need to make this a priority,’” said one source who spoke on condition of anonymity. […]
The basement press was shut down last spring, with printing moved to Peoria and a loss of more than 50 jobs in Springfield. The newsroom staff has also shrunk, as has the advertising department. The reduction in employment is reflected in the empty spaces in the newspaper’s employee parking lot, which overflowed with vehicles prior to GateHouse buying the newspaper in 2007. Today, there is plenty of room to park on any given day.
That company simply did itself in. It borrowed extensively to buy papers when the market was hot, and now it’s stuck with all those newspapers while the market is in a deep trough. That $1 billion debt payment next year may put it under.
…Adding… This post in no way should be meant to be seen as gloating over the SJ-R’s troubles. It’s a sad day for the paper and for Springfield. I have friends over there, and stories like this make me worry about them. Try to take this to heart in comments.
Merrick Ventures LLC CEO Michael Ferro Jr. is assembling a group of investors that includes Madison Dearborn Partners LLC Chairman John Canning Jr. to make a bid for Sun-Times Media Holdings LLC, according to people familiar with the effort.
The high-roller group is weighing an offer of about $14 million plus assumption of debt, but it’s not clear when a formal bid will be made for the Chicago-based newspaper chain, the people said. […]
Mr. Ferro has been discussing an offer for the newspaper publisher over the last several weeks, the people said. […]
In the two years since the group bought the newspaper publisher out of bankruptcy, the company has outsourced printing and distribution of its flagship Sun-Times newspaper to rival Tribune Co., shutdown some of its suburban newspapers and cut hundreds of the 1,800 employees who worked there when the group took over.
Messrs. Ferro and Canning already have shown an interest in Chicago media with their investment last year in the Chicago News Cooperative, which publishes city news on its website and on the Chicago pages inside the New York Times twice a week. Mr. Canning is chairman of CNC’s board and Mr. Ferro also sits on its board.
* But Sun-Times Media’s chairman says the paper is not for sale…
But Halbreich said the company has received numerous inquiries from potential purchasers since part-owner James Tyree died in March. Tyree, then the chairman of Mesirow Financial, recruited investors to buy the company for $5 million out of bankruptcy in the fall of 2009.
“The paper and the company have never been put up for sale. We’ve not been shopped. We are not being marketed,” Halbreich said.
In an e-mail to employees, Halbreich said, “The fact that our competition is speculating about our future is due in no small measure to the success of the turnaround that we are in the middle of.”
One top GOP funder tells me Mr. Schock recently came right out and asked if he ought to run. Other party sources say they’ve heard definite buzz that Mr. Schock, while far from any final decision, has begun to test the gubernatorial waters.
Mr. Schock’s office, of course, downplayed all of this while stopping well short of a denial.
“People bring up the subject to him,” a spokesman said in an email, “but he has not organized any effort beyond representing the people of the 18th District.”
Added the spokesman: “While never taking any option off the table, his focus remains (on) rising in House leadership.” Mr. Schock holds a seat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee and serves on the whip team.
* But Bernie Schoenberg reports that some important aspects of that statement were left out of the story…
…Steven Schearer, Schock’s chief of staff, sent me the email he provided Hinz, where it says that when Schock hears news of how he might run for governor or U.S. Senate, it “never ceases to amaze him because the scenarios are always news to him. Of course he frequently asks people … what they think about him doing that. He always listens … but he has not organized any effort beyond representing the people of the 18th District.”
Shearer said there are “way more people” who are certain Schock is running for Senate than governor in 2014.
All of this comes, Shearer said, despite the fact Schock has focused in his three years in Congress on rising within the House. In 2010, he was among the top 10 House Republicans in raising money for the National Republican Congressional Committee and also in the top 10 raising money for the Young Guns program to finance GOP challengers for House seats.
“While never taking any option off the table, his focus remains rising in House leadership,” Shearer said, noting Schock is a GOP whip and on the “most powerful Ways and Means Committee. As still the youngest member (age 30) and with the fast start he got off to in the House, his future in there is unlimited.”
* In other news, Joe Walsh’s district hopping isn’t going over well in one GOP township…
Republican insiders told the Journal & Topics Newspapers this week that Walsh recently met with 8th Dist. Republican candidate Darlene Ruscitti in an attempt to “intimidate her” into dropping out so Walsh could run in the 8th rather than face a potentially difficult primary in the 14th against U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren.
Ruscitti was having none of it and told Walsh she was staying in the race, Republican sources said. […]
Insiders also said that Walsh conducted telephone polling in the 6th, 8th, 10th and 14th congressional districts to see where he might have the easiest race.
Walsh’s possible run in the 8th is not sitting well with Elk Grove Township Republican Committeeman Mike Sweeney or longtime Republican stalwart Elk Grove Township Supervisor Nanci Vanderweel who called the alleged meeting between Ruscitti and Walsh “offensive.”
I told subscribers weeks ago that Walsh had polled in Congressman Peter Roskam’s new district, which was not viewed with pleasure by the Roskam camp, to say the least. He really knows how to make friends, this guy.
* I can’t say as I blame the company for its disgust with the state legislative process. Cat pushed hard for the reinstatement of the research and development tax credit, which is only $25 million, yet is quite valuable to a state with several pharmaceutical and manufacturing headquarters…
Caterpillar spokesman Jim Dugan said he saw some irony in the fact that “a week or two ago we see the state quoted as saying they’re interested in” in working with Cat to bring the new plant slated for the continent to the Land of Lincoln - with the 1,000 or so jobs expected to come with it - but then lawmakers reject the measure containing the tax credit that Cat hoped to receive.
“Contrasted with this expressed desire to have businesses grow here, to locate here, (this) is a disconnect that is unexplainable,” he said.
However, Dugan said a decision on the siting is not linked to the R&D tax credit, and in fact involves reviewing a number of criteria. A number of different locations within the U.S., as well as in Canada and Mexico, will potentially be vying for the plant, with a decision on the location expected by the end of the year.
Inaction on the tax credit “is an example of a much, much broader, deeper, fundamental issue and problem” for the state, Dugan said. “We have a state that’s clearly lost without a rudder in the midst of a company like Caterpillar with 23,000 employees in Illinois.”
The problem, Dugan said, is that “there’s no long-term stability” or predictability in state policy for the company to depend upon.
No argument here.
The R&D tax credit should never have been allowed to expire in the first place. And if an agreement on a broader tax package can’t be reached, it ought to be revived on its own.
And maybe that’s what the GA needs to do with the rest of the tax cuts anyway. Allow members to submit amendments and vote on these tax cuts individually, perhaps during a Committee of the Whole. There’s an agreement on the Sears tax break, so that may pass. The Democrats can pass the EITC proposal. Just about everybody would vote for R&D. And that Chicago theater tax break will probably die. The CME deal would be an interesting debate in and of itself. I’d like to see it.
* A parental notification of abortion law was passed in 1995, the last time Republicans had complete control of the Legislature and the governor’s office. But it wasn’t enforced because the Illinois Supreme Court refused to issue rules for appealing the notification requirement. The court issued the rules in 2006, but constitutional challenges quickly followed.
Anyway, the Supremes announced yesterday that they would try to resolve the issue…
Paul Linton, an attorney for the anti-abortion Thomas More Society, said federal courts have rejected challenges to the Illinois law, while the U.S. Supreme Court has held that states have a legitimate interest “in protecting pregnant minors and the rights of their parents to provide guidance and counsel in this very sensitive area.”
But Lorie Chaiten, director of the Reproductive Rights Project for the Illinois branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, said she’s confident the case will be sent back to lower courts for a complete review of “evidence demonstrating that the real-life harms this law imposes cannot be justified.”
The law would require doctors to notify the guardians of a girl 17 or younger before she has an abortion. There are exceptions for emergencies and cases of sexual abuse, and girls could bypass the notification requirement by going to a judge.
Opponents claim it violates the privacy, equal protection and gender-equality clauses of the Illinois Constitution.
* The Question: With limited exceptions, do you support parental notification of abortions? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please. Thanks.
* State Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka warned legislators that they needed to come up with a “real” funding source for the tax cut package, and suggested gaming expansion as a possibility. “Heck, people are going to gamble anyway, we might as well be able to collect,” Topinka said.
The General Assembly wants to use $250 million in increased revenues next fiscal year from the expiration of a federal tax program, but Topinka says that money was already expected and legislators need to find new revenues. The comptroller said she even supported gaming at the State Fair, which sits empty most of the year. Gov. Pat Quinn flatly rejected that idea and has threatened to veto the rest of the gaming bill because it’s too “top heavy.”
Topinka says there’s currently $4.3 billion in overdue bills sitting in her office, plus another $1.9 billion in vouchers that agencies haven’t even submitted to her yet, $1.2 billion in unpaid employee health insurance, $500 million in overdue corporate tax refunds and $400 million in interfund repayments. “So that’s $8.3 billion we’re on the hook for right now while the legislature is considering, again, coming up with a Christmas tree worth of goodies here for a minimum of $250 million annually. If you’re going to do this then you’d better have a funding source. You’d better figure it out, you’d better have a funding source, because right now you don’t.
* Also in the interview, Topinka said people should “quit demonizing the state employees” over their pensions. She said she wanted to see some pension reforms because the current system is “unsustainable,” but wants to “see if there’s anything we can do without hurting the folks who have been paying right along.”
* So, how does a major bill like the tax cut package score a veto-proof majority in the Senate and get slaughtered on an 8-99 roll call in the House? As I’ve been warning subscribers for a while now, this is one very big reason…
We in the media have lots of fun talking about Mike Madigan, the always “powerful” speaker of the Illinois House. But there’s a reason.
You’ll never see a better example than Monday’s efforts in Springfield to keep Chicago’s big trading exchanges and Sears Holdings Inc. from leaving the state.
Mr. Madigan recused himself from a bill that would have given CME Group Inc., CBOE Holdings Inc. and Sears the tax breaks they say they need to continue to call Illinois home. That left the “B Team” in charge, and it performed about as well as Caleb Hanie did last weekend.
Madigan’s recusal on the gaming expansion bill is most certainly part of the reason that issue has stalled as well. Without his muscle, stuff often doesn’t get done.
* House GOP Leader Tom Cross was another roadblock…
House Minority Leader Tom Cross, R-Oswego, said Wednesday that many Republicans don’t think the earned-income tax credit should be part of the negotiations at all. They see the tax package as a matter of creating and retaining jobs and don’t think the tax credit helps achieve that.
Cross said Republicans have been talking to Democrats about setting aside the current version of the tax package and finding some different approach. Cross said he wants to hear from House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, about the next move.
But a top Madigan lieutenant said Cross has to spell out where he stands.
“My sense is that we need some indication from Tom Cross that he is willing to support something,” said House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, a Chicago Democrat who has been openly skeptical of responding to companies threatening to leave unless they get tax relief.
Cross wants to put the focus on economic development, saying “we don’t have any extra money” for tax breaks for the working poor that are part of the package.
Negotiating a deal on that point might be difficult, or impossible. Senate Democrats and Gov. Pat Quinn are calling for the opposite, wanting any corporate tax relief to come with breaks for working people as well.
“That’s going to take some talking to see how we can do that,” Cross said.
When I asked Mr. Cross why he couldn’t do what his Senate counterpart, Ms. Radogno, did — put some votes on what was a heavily pro-business bill — he said he is controlled by his caucus’ opposition to expanding the earned-income credit at all.
If that’s the reason, it’s bogus. Politics is not the business of perfection.
Others suggest Mr. Cross is irked that CME has given too much campaign cash to Democrats and not enough to his candidates. The Cross camp denies that, but the rumor continues to circulate.
There’s more to it than that, but when the House Republicans jumped off, so did everybody else.
Sears Holdings Wednesday issued an internal memo meant to reassure Hoffman Estates employees while still reiterating that the retail giant is committed to looking at all options after legislators failed to agree on tax breaks for the company.
While leaving the door open for a possible move out of state, Sears executives in the memo held out hope for eventual approval of the tax breaks the company is seeking and called the failure of the legislators to act on the issue Tuesday “another step in this process.” […]
“We received solid support for our portion of the legislation and are hopeful that the unrelated issues, including the earned income tax credit provision, will be resolved in short order by prudent leadership,” Sears’ memo to employees said.
“You should know that our portion of the bill was endorsed on the record by representatives of both Hoffman Estates and District 300. The fight is not over, and we continue to work toward a resolution,” the memo said.
While the process continues, Sears said “a final decision has not yet been made. Our commitment to you remains the same: to be thorough in our review of all of our options.”
Over the course of a relatively brief period of time, during his machinations surrounding the appointment of a United States Senator, and the shakedowns of hospital and racetrack executives, the defendant revealed his corrupt, criminal character. But, as the evidence and Blagojevich’s conduct at his trials established, these were not isolated incidents. They were part and parcel of an approach to public office that defendant adopted from the moment he became governor in 2002. In light of Blagojevich’s extensive corruption of high office, the damage he caused to the integrity of Illinois government, and the need to deter others from similar acts, the government suggests a sentence of 15 to 20 years imprisonment is sufficient but not greater than necessary to comply with § 3553.
The defendant’s version submitted to the Probation Department goes on at length in an attempt to relitigate the facts of this case, at times even presenting versions of facts that are at odds with Blagojevich’s trial testimony. In providing a spin on events thoroughly rejected by the jury, Blagojevich does nothing to shed light on the circumstances of his criminal activity other than demonstrate his refusal to accept responsibility for his crimes.
* And his good works as governor shouldn’t count for anything on his behalf…
His accomplishments as governor are far outweighed by the personal greed that infected his acts and his administration.
* Prosecutors also want to deter future corruption…
Sadly, Illinois has a history of corruption in government. The sentences imposed on previous criminals for public corruption crimes were not sufficient to dissuade Blagojevich from engaging in a myriad of criminal acts. Indeed, the governor prior to Blagojevich was sentenced to approximately six and a half years in prison. The six and a half year sentence did nothing to stop Blagojevich, as the very next governor, from engaging in significant and ongoing bribery, extortion, and fraud. A significant sentence is necessary to deter current and future public officials from engaging in Blagojevich-like criminal activity.
* They claim they could have asked for 30 years to life…
In the instant case, the properly-calculated Sentencing Guidelines recommend a sentencing range of 360 months to life.
“I’m absolutely dumbfounded that they wouldn’t be looking for a sentence of 30 years or more,” said attorney Jon Gray Noll.
“In the Central District of Illinois, at least the judges I practice before, the judges would stay within the 30 years to life range unless there was a valid reason for a downward departure,” Noll said, adding that the clients he defends who are accused of drug crimes would not receive any leniency from federal prosecutors.
“The guidelines have a purpose, to ensure uniformity throughout the system. In this high-profile case, for them to reduce this guys’ sentence by almost half, I don’t understand it in light of the other policies they slam on anyone else.”
If Rod Blagojevich goes to prison within the 15- to 20-year range that federal prosecutors recommended to a judge Wednesday, the former governor would potentially face more time behind bars than three previously convicted Illinois governors combined.
He would also face a stiffer sentence than mob murderer and key cooperator Nicholas Calabrese, whom the same judge handling Blagojevich’s case, U.S. District Judge James Zagel, sent to prison for 12 years, five months.
One of Blagojevich’s attorneys, Carolyn Gurland, said the government wants Blagojevich to pay for the sins of all corrupt Illinois politicos. “The government wants Blagojevich to pay for all of the political corruption in the history of the state of Illinois,” Gurland said. “But under the law, defendants are to be sentenced as individuals, not symbols or sound bites.”
The defense had said it would seek probation, but Wednesday it only asked Zagel to sentence Blagojevich below a range of 3½ to a bit more than 4 years.
The gulf between the two sides could hardly be wider. Prosecutors called for Blagojevich to be sentenced to 15 to 20 years in prison, potentially the toughest sentence in Chicago’s long, sad history of public corruption. In contrast, the defense, which for weeks has said it will seek probation, beseeched Zagel to impose a compassionate sentence, calling him a tragic figure.
In their 72-page filing Wednesday evening, Blagojevich’s lawyers ignored the verdicts of two separate juries to paint the former governor as an “innocent” who had no idea he was breaking the law by trading favors for campaign contributions and was betrayed by scheming advisers.
“He chose advisers poorly as it turned out and regrets those choices profoundly,” the defense wrote.
That would seem to be a risky strategy with Zagel, who at times has made clear his disdain for Blagojevich’s antics and excuses. […]
Much of Blagojevich’s filing, however, seemed to be yet another long argument of his innocence.
The defense argued that “a full and fair analysis” of undercover recordings in the case would reveal Blagojevich “sincerely believed that his actions were proper under the law as he understood it at the time.”
