* A pro-coal rally in southern Illinois turned political over the weekend when first one speaker then another denounced President Obama…
Phil Gonet, president of the Illinois Coal Association, said although coal production was up 13 percent last year in Illinois, growth might be short lived. He said the administration in Washington wants to put the coal industry out of business.
Although the event was billed as an apolitical rally, some speakers, including Gonet, made it clear that politics is playing a large role in the current state of the industry.
“I want to be clear today: Some said this isn’t a rally about politics, and it isn’t — it’s about coal,” he said. “But I want to be clear right at the beginning, if you’re for coal, you can’t be for the present administration, you can’t be for President Obama.”
So, Illinois coal production was up 13 percent last year, but… Obama is killing it? I’m not sure I follow here.
* Things really got heated when the next speaker took the podium, Bob Murray, president of Murray Energy…
Murray continued several minutes outlining how Obama is hurting the industry and how Republican challenger Mitt Romney would support the coal industry.
Murray was eventually interrupted by a heckler in the crowd, who yelled the rally wasn’t supposed to be political.
Murray replied, “This is very political, that’s’ what the coal industry is all about,” he said. “I’ve been invited to speak, when I’m done you can speak — until I’m done, you shut up.”
Moments later Murray was again interrupted, to which he replied, “Shut up, you’re no coal miner,” and began a chant of “Coal, Coal, Coal.”
Several miners at Murray Energy’s Century coal mine in Beallsville, Ohio, contacted a nearby morning talk radio host, David Blomquist, over the last two weeks to say that they were forced to attend an Aug. 14 rally for Romney at the mine.
Murray closed the mine the day of the rally, saying it was necessary for security and safety, then docked miners the day’s pay.
Asked by WWVA radio’s Blomquist about the allegations on Monday’s show, Murray chief operating officer Robert Moore said: “Attendance was mandatory but no one was forced to attend the event.”
Murray is right about one thing, though. Coal is more about politics than anything else. Everybody promises to revive coal, and then nothing happens until the next election, when everybody promises to revive coal. But when coal finally does rebound, the person in charge is denounced for killing the industry.
State Treasurer Dan Rutherford said the Illinois coal industry is a billion dollar industry that employs 3,500 people. Rutherford said the industry needs to be sustained in order to protect American interests and security.
3,500 employees. That’s it.
Coal extraction is so mechanized now that even a huge increase in production wouldn’t employ all that many people.
Trust me, I understand the strategic aspect of the resource. But a jobs producer it really ain’t. Take a look at this graph of Kentucky coal mining output and employment…
* I can’t keep all my polls secret. I figured this one would get picked up by at least some major media outlets. Indicted and expelled former state Rep. Derrick Smith has a huge 48-9 lead over his third-party opponent, Lance Tyson…
The survey, which showed 43 percent of respondents undecided, was performed by Illinois pollster We Ask America on Sept. 12 and first reported Monday by Chicago Sun-Times columnist Rich Miller in his Capitol Fax newsletter.
Gregg Durham, chief operating officer of the polling group, said it appears residents in the 10th House District may be unaware of Smith’s August expulsion from the House because of his federal bribery charge.
“Usually, when we dig into these types of details, there’s a surprising amount of people busy making a living, raising kids and going through normal struggles of life who are unaware of what has happened,” Durham told the Chicago Sun-Times.
“Former Rep. Smith has a common last name, and it’s not uncommon anywhere in Illinois for people to not pay attention in a state representative race, especially when there’s an important presidential race at hand,” he said. “If this election were held today, he’d swamp Mr. Tyson.”
Smith was indicted last spring after allegedly accepting a $7,000 cash bribe from an undercover FBI informant who claimed to be acting as an intermediary to a purported daycare operator wanting Smith’s help in obtaining a $50,000 state grant. Smith allegedly wrote a letter of support for the daycare operator before taking the informant’s money.
Durham said another factor is that the automated poll informed voters of Smith and Tyson’s political affiliations, and many Democrats likely were swayed by learning Smith is the only Democrat in the race.
Among respondents who identified themselves as Democrats, 57 percent favored Smith, and only 7 percent chose Tyson.
* From Carol Marin’s weekend column on Derrick Smith…
(Y)ou might assume that some party regulars would be thrilled to endorse Tyson, running on the Unity Party ticket.
Secretary of State Jesse White, who launched Smith’s political career and now renounces him, supports Tyson.
But others? Not so much.
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is “neutral” in this race, according to her political director.
As is Madigan, whose own political committee was providing financial resources to Smith at the same time lawmakers were ousting him.
There are a lot of political subplots to this story, including beleaguered West Side politicians struggling to keep their power base who think Smith — even under a federal cloud — helps them more than Tyson.
* And Eric Zorn’s take on Marin’s column was prescient, since he didn’t know the poll results when he posted this…
My theory: They’re anticipating Smith will be convicted at his federal corruption trial, scheduled to start later this year, and will therefore be ineligible to serve in the General Assembly. And they’re afraid that Smith still has enough support in his district to deal the party an embarrassing loss. So rather than risk the humiliation of extending themselves for Tyson — who was once former Cook County Board President Todd Stroger’s chief of staff — they’d rather wait and hand-pick a safe and compliant replacement for Smith.
The other theory I’ve heard is that the House Democrats would rather not “waste” precious money on Smith which could be used to defeat Republicans. The ball may be entirely in Jesse White’s court now.
*** UPDATE *** This won’t help the governor’s argument. The state’s prison population just hit an all-time high…
State records analyzed by The Associated Press show the population topped 49,154 over the weekend. That’s 19 inmates more than the Corrections Department’s previous record, set on Oct. 6, 2011. […]
The prisons were designed to hold 33,700 people. Last spring corrections officials declared a downward trend in prison numbers and predicted an overall average for the year of less than 46,000.
Quinn wants to close five correctional centers — a loss of 1,700 more beds — to save money in a budget crisis. A lawsuit by a state employees’ union has stalled that.
The Illinois Fifth District Appellate Court in Mount Vernon has denied the state’s appeal of a 30-day restraining order issued earlier this month in Alexander County.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees had sought the restraining order to temporarily halt closures of state facilities, including Tamms Correctional Center, Illinois Youth Center in Murphysboro and Southern Illinois Adult Transition Center in Carbondale.
An arbitrator had ruled in the union’s behalf, ordering the state and AFSCME to return to the bargaining table for 30 days before closures could begin. The union filed suit in Alexander County to effectively give that decision the weight of law.
Associate Circuit Judge Charles Cavaness of the First Judicial Circuit granted the 30-day restraining order Sept. 4. The state appealed Sept. 6.
The Appellate Court unanimously rejected the Quinn Administration’s appeal of the TRO, issued earlier this month, and dismissed the claim that Alexander County Circuit Court Judge Charles Cavaness had abused the court’s discretion in issuing the order in response to a motion filed by AFSCME. The ruling clearly stated that the “trial court did not abuse its discretion in granting the temporary restraining order to maintain the status quo until the court rules upon the request for injunctive relief.”. The TRO is affirmed and remains in effect.
At the same time, the Quinn Administration has also filed suit in Cook County seeking to vacate the arbitrator’s order on which the TRO is based. In response to two grievances filed by AFSCME Council 31 earlier this month, Arbitrator Steve Beirig ruled that the Administration had not fulfilled its contractual obligation to bargain over the impact of the scheduled closures in DOC and DJJ. The arbitrator directed the parties to continue negotiations for up to 30 days to resolve the outstanding issues—especially those related to the impact of the closures on employee health and safety throughout the corrections system.
The Administration has also filed a motion in Cook County seeking an emergency stay of the arbitrator’s order. If the stay is granted, then the state would not be obligated to bargain and could go forward with the closures while the State’s motion to vacate the arbitrator’s ruling is pending before the court.
AFSCME has filed counter motions to dismiss the state’s motion to vacate (and with it the motion for the emergency stay) or else to move the case to Alexander County Circuit Court to be considered in conjunction with the Union’s pending case seeking an injunction to halt the closures.
Both the Administration’s motions and the Union’s motions will have an initial hearing in Cook County Circuit Court at 10:30 AM on Wednesday, Sept. 19.
The union is seeking the injunction “in aid of arbitration” to prevent the state from moving forward with the closures until the issues raised in impact bargaining have been addressed. If the injunction is granted, it will likely be on the same basis as the TRO. A TRO can be granted without the full-scale legal proceedings that are required for an injunction—and is granted on an emergency basis until the hearing on the injunction can be completed.
A hearing on the Union’s motion seeking an injunction to halt the closures in aid of arbitration is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 24 in Alexander County Circuit Court.
An official with the comptroller’s office said the hacker couldn’t access the main frame, so no data was compromised. The Inspector General is investigating.
* In related news, one of my e-mail accounts was hijacked this morning. All they appeared to have done was change my password, though. No e-mails were sent from my account. I hope I caught it quickly enough.
The hackers got access to my account when they changed my password by answering my secret question, which, in retrospect was a stupid secret question: “In what town were you born?” Pretty much anyone can find out that answer.
* The Question: Have you or your business/agency ever been hacked? Explain.
[Democrat David Gill’s] campaign manager quit last week, saying he needed to spend more time on his own campaign for Champaign County Board. […]
Alte couldn’t say last week if a full-time campaign manager will be brought on board for the final 52 days of the race.
“I’m not really certain about that,” Alte said.
And the NRCC has pounced on Gill’s assisted suicide issue. From the Pantagraph…
“I don’t think people should have to put up with the amount of suffering the state says they have to. A lot of physicians feel disgruntled, ashamed and disgusted in their inability to assist patients,” Gill said in an article in The (Bloomington) Pantagraph.
He added that physician-assisted suicides already occur.
For example, Gill said some doctors will keep increasing a patient’s dosage of pain-relieving morphine, fully aware that respirations will eventually stop.
“It goes on everyday,” he said at the time.
It wasn’t until two years later that he was fired by OSF after writing a letter to the editor in support of euthanasia. A hospital spokeswoman said physician-assisted suicide goes against the teachings of the Catholic church.
“In view of the fact that Dr. David Gill embraces and advocates medical treatment methods that are unlawful in this state and that are not acceptable by community medical standards, Dr. Gill cannot be employed by OSF HealthCare System,” a company representative said at the time.
* From the NRCC…
As you cover David Gill’s DCCC makeover attempt to not appear as radical as he is, please consider the following editorial and comment.
NRCC Statement: “Illinois families need to know that David Gill thinks physician-assisted suicide is an acceptable medical treatment. This is the same man that is running for Congress and wants to be put in charge of representing the healthcare needs of Illinois families in Washington. Sending David Gill and his radical ideas to Washington is dangerous for Illinois families.” – NRCC Spokeswoman Katie Prill
I was in Edwardsville over the weekend and Gill was being followed there Saturday by some guy dressed in a surgeon’s outfit and holding a sign that I couldn’t read as we sped by. By the time we dropped off our passenger and returned to the scene, the whole thing was over.
* Meanwhile, the negative TV ads are flying fast and furious these days. The DCCC’s new ad against Republican incumbent Bobby Schilling is entitled “Broken Records.” Rate it…
* Script…
Records are made to be broken.
And Bobby Schilling is giving it his best shot.
In two years flat, Schilling voted to give tax breaks to millionaires…
Voted to protect tax breaks for companies that send our jobs overseas… and voted for more unfair NAFTA-style trade deals.
And to pay for it all? Schilling voted to cut Medicare, costing seniors an extra sixty four hundred dollars a year.
Bobby Schilling. From one of us to one of them…in record time.
Joe Ricketts, whose family owns the Chicago Cubs, is moving forward with plans to bankroll a major ad campaign to help Mitt Romney and Republican candidates. […]
The Wall Street Journal reports today that Ricketts will spend $12 million on ads starting this week, with $10 million to back Romney and $2 million to assist Republicans running for Congress.
The ads funded by Ricketts will feature ex-Obama supporters talking about Romney, a tactic that Romney used on his own in a video played at the GOP convention in Tampa. The WSJ says the ads will run in battlegrounds such as Wisconsin, Ohio, Virginia and Iowa.
Ricketts, the founder of TD Ameritrade, is behind the Ending Spending Action Fund. The super PAC has assisted Republican Deb Fischer, the Senate candidate in Nebraska, and spent money on an ad supporting Gov. Scott Walker in the Wisconsin recall election.
* Related…
* Word on the Street: Ethics group cites Schock over campaign fundraising: The Reader’s Digest version is this: Schock apparently sought a $25,000 donation from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor to a super PAC that was helping Rep. Adam Kinzinger in his successful primary bid against Rep. Don Manzullo for territory including all of Putnam County and part of Stark and Bureau counties. The groups filing the complaint - Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal center - allege that Schock was only legally permitted to ask for a $5,000 donation.
* The Tribune editorial board claims it has researched the proposed pension “cost shift” to local schools and has come to believe that it won’t increase property taxes. A phased-in cost shift coupled with reforms in the current proposal make the plan “affordable” for school districts, the paper claims. It also has what it calls a compromise solution…
We’ve been shopping a compromise solution to some smart Republicans and Democrats, with nobody screaming, “No!” Today we humbly take it public:
Legislators, pass pension reform with the cost shift plus language that would render moot the local distrust of Springfield. How so? By giving local districts and other governments not only the responsibility to fund pensions, but the freedom to negotiate benefits with their employees — just as they negotiate wages. Springfield still could maintain its pension investment pools and make sure local governments pay into them. In rough terms, then, we’re suggesting a model that borrows from, and adds to, protocols under which the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund successfully operates.
Republicans, the party of grass-roots government, should like this expanded local control. Local districts and other governments should be thrilled to have not just responsibility for, but control over, their compensation packages. The best question we’ve heard: Won’t this create a gap between pensions offered by have and have-not governments? Maybe or maybe not; governments already can tweak pay and other compensation components to fit their needs and resources.
* US funds fall out of love with commodities: A brief love affair with commodities is over at the $36bn Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System, one of the biggest public pension funds in America. Four years after hiring managers to make new commodities investments, the pension fund has scrapped the strategy and shuffled money into a portfolio it says “better reflects conditions in the world economy”.
* AFSCME under siege - Union faces unprecedented challenges, even from allies
* Andy Shaw: End pension scams for clout crowd: Will this solve the state’s giant pension problem? No. But a crackdown sends an important grass-roots message: Governments of all sizes have to stabilize public pensions for the hardworking rank-and-file workers — not the insiders who use power, clout and cunning to game the system.
Chicago Public School students appeared less likely to be heading back to school Tuesday after a Cook County judge declined Monday morning to take up immediately a lawsuit by Chicago Public Schools asking the judge to end the teachers strike.
In a brief hearing, Cook County Judge Peter Flynn told a city attorney he preferred to schedule a hearing on the matter for Wednesday, a city law department spokesman said. The spokesman could not immediately provide a reason for the delay.
Wednesday is, for now, the earliest possible time students could return if the teachers union House of Delegates votes to approve the tentative deal at its meeting Tuesday.
Chicago Public Schools balked at that timeframe, wanting to sent students back on Tuesday. It filed a lawsuit in Cook County court Monday morning, asking a judge to end the teachers strike because it is illegal and presents a “clear and present danger to public health and safety.”
With Chicago Teachers Union delegates voting to stay on strike at least through Tuesday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel Sunday accused the union of using children as “pawns’’ and vowed to seek a court order to halt the walkout.
The announcement from Emanuel came about an hour after CTU President Karen Lewis said “a clear majority’’ of delegates refused to suspend the strike until they had seen the exact contract language of the entire deal — something not expected until Tuesday.
Delegates just didn’t trust Chicago Public Schools not to try to slip one over on them if they called off the first CTU strike in 25 years without more study and discussion of the offer, Lewis said.
“Please write ‘trust’ in big giant letters because that’s what the problem is,’’ Lewis said. […]
“The big elephant in the room,’’ Lewis said, “is the closing of 200 schools”—a number CPS officials have denied.
“They [delegates] are extraordinarily concerned about it. It undergirds just about everything they talked about.’’
One delegate agreed the group wanted “something in writing to go on….We need more than just the bullet point break down.’’
* Mayor Emanuel’s full statement…
I will not stand by while the children of Chicago are played as pawns in an internal dispute within a union. This was a strike of choice and is now a delay of choice that is wrong for our children. Every day our kids are kept out of school is one more day we fail in our mission: to ensure that every child in every community has an education that matches their potential.
I have instructed the City’s Corporation Counsel to work with the General Counsel of Chicago Public Schools to file an injunction in circuit court to immediately end this strike and get our children back in the classroom. This continued action by union leadership is illegal on two grounds – it is over issues that are deemed by state law to be non-strikable, and it endangers the health and safety of our children.
I have also asked the President of the Board of Education, David Vitale, and the CEO of Chicago Public Schools, Jean-Claude Brizard, to explore every action possible to get our kids back into a classroom or educational facility.
While the union works through its remaining issues, there is no reason why the children of Chicago should not be back in the classroom as they had been for weeks while negotiators worked through these same issues.
CTU spokeswoman Stephanie Gadlin responded: “They said the Montgomery bus boycott was illegal, too.”
CTU leaders have said they believe teacher evaluation and recall are linked to pay and are thus fair game for a strike. The union also sought to insulate itself against a court injunction by filing an unfair labor practice complaint, just days before the strike.
The basis of that complaint was the union’s charge that CPS started illegally implementing provisions that had not been negotiated in the contract, such as failing to pay teachers step increases and implementing a new teacher evaluation system.
Filing an injunction is a risky move for Emanuel. If he loses in court, he would further anger teachers and make them more suspicious of the deal. If he wins, forcing teachers to end their strike could anger members of other unions.
Be clear in your own mind. Your leverage is gone. The deal doesn’t get any better after this and your standing with the community only goes downhill.
In fact, it started going downhill precipitously the moment union President Karen Lewis stepped before the television cameras Sunday to say school won’t reopen until Wednesday at the earliest. I don’t need to wait for a public opinion poll to know this.
By delaying, you don’t underscore your distrust for Mayor Rahm Emanuel or the leadership at Chicago Public Schools. You only expose a lack of trust in your own negotiating team and the leader of your team, Lewis.
You’re not showing you have a democratic union. You’re showing you have a union that is as tone deaf as all those national commentators have been saying for the past week. You’re showing yourself to be a union out of control.
If you don’t take this deal, you might as well dump Lewis and her team and start over because their credibility will be gone at the bargaining table.
*** UPDATE *** From the same parade as below, we hear the Democratic tracker in this video hollering at a parade watcher “Don’t wave, she’s gonna send you back to Mexico!” The offending comment is at about the 30 second mark…
Ugh.
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* This is definitely not how to deal with a video tracker. What appears to be a motorcycle-riding volunteer for Congresswoman Judy Biggert’s campaign threatens to run over a Democratic tracker…
Not good at all.
Chill out, people.
Seriously.
* In other news, the NRCC has a new TV ad blasting Democratic congressional candidate Bill Enyart…
* Script…
BILL ENYART: The job market is gradually getting better under President Obama.
ANNOUNCER: Getting better Mr. Enyart?
Twelve million Americans are out of work.
Millions more have lost hope all together.
Even worse Mr. Enyart, your support for keeping the government takeover of healthcare will raise taxes on small businesses and could destroy another 249,000 jobs.
Bill Enyart,
Out of touch, liberal, wrong for the economy.
* Democratic congressional candidate David Gill has a new radio ad…
* And a group called the American Action Network launched a $350,000 TV and digital campaign against the Democratic Gill. This ad will run on St. Louis TV for two weeks…
* Script…
David Gill supported the failed stimulus and government funding of companies like Solyndra, which lost a half a billion of our tax dollars.
Now, Gill wants a single-payer health plan more radical than Obamacare.
Gill would eliminate Medicare, put bureaucrats in charge of healthcare decisions, and add a new 2 percent tax to pay for it, costing families one thousand dollars a year.
David Gill: Radical ideas we just can’t vote for.
American Action Network is responsible for the content of this advertising.
