Ed Duffy
Friday, Jan 10, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Before we close out for the week, I need to post this…
Edward Duffy, best known to those he loved most as Dad or Papa, left this earth on Saturday surrounded by his girls.
Born in 1945 to Edward & Dorothy Duffy, it was obvious from the start that the world would be changed by this young boy. He made wonderful childhood memories with best friends and siblings, Bill and Patty. He married our mom in 1968 and together they created a family that loves like no other.
In the decades since he joined the work force he left his indelible mark on a variety of fields. From his early years on the Chicago Police Force to his years with the State of Illinois heading the Dangerous Drugs Commission, The Department of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse, The Department of Public Aid, and as Deputy Chief of Staff for Governor Thompson. Realizing as his girls grew that he wanted to spend more time at home, he moved to the private sector where he oversaw the rebuilding of Arlington Park Racetrack as President and then later the transformation of Sportsman’s Park into a dual-purpose facility that brought world class auto racing to Illinois with Chicago Motor Speedway. Undoubtedly his most loved job was his last - being Grandpa to 8 kids who were absolutely the loves of his life.
His legacy will live on in those he left behind; the love of his life Nancy, his daughters Colleen, Meghan, Kelli, Erin, and Cara, the sons he welcomed with open arms; Tim, Eric, Brent, and Scott, and most importantly his grandkids whom he loved with no limits: Katelyn, Madison, Braden, Bryce, Ansley, Everleigh, Finnegan, Brooklyn, and his newest due late this summer.
Instead of sending flowers, please consider a donation to either The Ronan Thompson Foundation or The Truth 365 as they are personal favorites of his, we know it would mean the world to him.
Memorial visitation Friday, January 10th, 3:00 until the time of service 8:00 pm at the Countryside Funeral Home & Crematory, 950 South Bartlett Rd.(at Stearns Rd.) Bartlett. 630-289-7575 or www.countrysidefuneralhomes.com.
Ed had a lot of friends and my heart goes out to his family.
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The dogs of Munich
Friday, Jan 10, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* I spent some time in Munich over the break. I went to college there for a year, so it was cool to see how the place had changed.
We also went to the spectacular Neuschwanstein Castle. I’d never been there, and despite the very long walk up the hill, the view was most definitely worth it…
* One of the things that really stood out for me was the number of German dogs who accompanied their owners to places that American dog owners are never allowed to bring their pets.
We walked into the Hofbräuhaus and there was a dog kicking back at his beer-drinking owner’s feet. It’s a naturally accepted thing over there. People bring their dogs everywhere and it’s just no big deal. Heck, there were even two dogs at the Louis Vuitton store (and, no, I didn’t buy anything there).
I think the Deutches Museum was the only place where I saw a “No Pets” sign. Every other spot was cool with animals, and they all behaved quite well.
Maybe that’s the difference. American dog owners are kinda notorious for letting their dogs get a little too rambunctious in public. Same goes for their kids.
* Oscar the Puppy is often a bit too enthusiastic in public, and his breed is infamous for joyously jumping on people by way of a greeting. So we have to keep a close eye on the little guy when he goes anywhere outside the grounds of the International Headquarters.
But he sure wasn’t raucous when we picked him up Monday evening. The poor thing was exhausted from playing with his puppy pals almost non-stop for two weeks. He slept all the way home, then went right to bed.
* Oscar is pretty much fully recovered today, but he was still tuckered out yesterday when I took this video…
One day, I’m gonna take that puppy to the Hofbräuhaus.
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Everybody wants to get into the act
Friday, Jan 10, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From the DCCC…
Republican Bob Dold wanted struggling Illinois families to have the minimum wage cut, too. Before Republican candidate for governor Bruce Rauner set off a firestorm with his suggestion that he wanted to lower the minimum wage, Dold advocated for lowering the minimum wage during a live interview. In 2010, Dold was asked if he’d support a reduction in the minimum wage and argued he would support such a move. “Certainly lowering the minimum wage I know in my business I can’t hire anybody at the minimum wage but certainly if we lower the minimum wage more people will go back to work.”
“There’s no better example of Bob Dold’s refusal to stand up to the Tea Party’s reckless agenda than Dold’s proposal to lower the minimum wage,” said Brandon Lorenz of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Instead of strengthening middle class families and growing the economy, Bob Dold’s standing with the reckless Tea Party agenda that leaves them out in the cold.”
BACKGROUND:
Congressman Dold Supported Lowering the Minimum Wage. In 2010, Dold was asked if he’d support a reduction in the minimum wage. “I think the federal government in general needs to get out of the way, take regulation off […] Certainly lowering the minimum wage I know in my business I can’t hire anybody at the minimum wage but certainly if we lower the minimum wage more people will go back to work.” [Political Shoot-Out Interview WLS 890 AM Radio, 1/03/10]
* Audio…
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*** UPDATED x1 *** Big buckaroos
Friday, Jan 10, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Conservative gazillionaire Richard Uihlein just contributed $1.5 million to Dan Proft’s Liberty Principles PAC, which is now an independent expenditures PAC.
*** UPDATE *** Illinois Review…
When asked about this, Dan Proft, Chairman and Treasurer of Liberty Principles PAC told IR the organization’s resources will continue to be focused on state legislative races only. About Uihlein’s specific donation, Proft said:
“The investment represents Mr. Uihlein’s ongoing commitment to the economic liberty policy agenda and to Illinois state legislative candidates who share that commitment. Mr. Uihlein’s financial commitment is shared by a growing number of Liberty Principles PAC donors who understand the need for new political leadership in Springfield in order for Illinois to attract and retain businesses and grow jobs.”
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Question of the day
Friday, Jan 10, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From last month…
Chicago Bulls forward Taj Gibson became the 15th player to draw a warning for violating the anti-flopping rule, the NBA announced Monday.
Gibson drew his warning for a play that occurred in the first quarter of Saturday’s victory over the Cavaliers. A video replay showed Gibson exaggerating contact he drew from Cavaliers guard Kyrie Irving.
No fine is involved. If Gibson draws a second warning, he will be fined $5,000.
* The Question: Your proposed “new rules” for Illinois politics?
It’s Friday, so try to have some fun.
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For him when it suits their purposes
Friday, Jan 10, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* On May 29th, the Chicago Tribune editorial board implored, even begged House Speaker Michael Madigan to use all of his vast powers to pass a pension reform bill by the end of the spring session…
Working your bill in the Senate is what a leader committed to pension reform — even you, the House leader — should do. It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve broken protocol to get the results you wanted. You do it all the time:
•You stopped your wristwatch on the final day of session in 1988, right before the clock struck midnight, to get a new stadium approved for the White Sox. For that deal, then-Gov. Jim Thompson was on the floor of both chambers muscling votes too.
•You lobbied hard for a controversial 1999 gambling expansion bill that would have moved a riverboat license to Rosemont. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley lobbied for it. Senate President Pate Philip handed out cigars when the bill passed both chambers.
•In 2007 you called a rare committee of the whole meeting in your chamber to address Rod Blagojevich’s gross receipts tax. The hearing lasted eight hours.
•And two years ago you stepped onto the Senate floor to help pass a 67 percent hike in the personal income tax rate. After you worked the room, it passed.
Remember, Mike, you’re also chairman of the Democratic Party of Illinois. You and your majority-party-in-both-chambers can’t leave Springfield, yet again, without passing major pension reform. Which means you can’t allow ego and sandbox foolishness to derail progress. Not when your bill has come this far. Not when 62 House members, some of whom you finessed, already put “yes” votes on the board.
Work your bill to completion. Persuade Cullerton to call it for a vote. Get it on Gov. Pat Quinn’s desk. When it’s all over, we’ll buy you all ice cream cones to help smooth things over. We’re guessing you’re a sherbet kind of guy.
Deal? Hope so.
Sincerely,
Chicago Tribune editorial board
* On November 6th, the Tribune editorial board praised Madigan for working his magic on the gay marriage bill…
Many people deserve credit for building support in the House and Senate, including the leaders, Senate President John Cullerton and House Speaker Michael Madigan.
* But yesterday, the Tribune reverted to form and blasted Madigan for being too powerful and argued for term limits…
Madigan has been speaker for all but two of the last 31 years. Yet you didn’t elect him. The other lawmakers did.
They know he’s guilty of overreaching, and they know how to stop it. They could pass a law, or even a House rule, that limits how long any member can serve as speaker. Or they could, you know, elect someone else. But they don’t and they won’t.
Why? Because Madigan owns them. He draws their districts, too. He directs the patronage army that gets them elected. He bankrolls their campaigns, and here, too, he has granted himself an advantage: When the General Assembly passed the state’s first-ever campaign finance limits, Madigan made sure legislative leaders were exempt from those caps.
The blue ribbon ethics commission that championed those caps also recommended term limits for leaders. A bill was drafted and forgotten.
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Today’s numbers are bad, too
Friday, Jan 10, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Moody’s Analytics ranks Illinois dead last among the 50 states for projected 2014 job growth. The firm is predicting a growth rate next year of just 0.98 percent. Click on the pic for the full interactive map…
Indiana is ranked 25th at 1.60 percent. Wisconsin is ranked 32nd at a projected 1.49 percent growth for the year. And Michigan is 27th at 1.55 percent 2014 projected growth.
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*** UPDATED x1 *** Fix it now
Friday, Jan 10, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* One of the main reasons that I felt comfortable with the new fracking regulatory law was that the Illinois Sierra Club was at the negotiating table and agreed to the final cut.
But if the Sierra Club is this unhappy with the proposed Illinois Department of Natural Resources regulations, well, now I’m very uncomfortable indeed…
Six months ago, Gov. Pat Quinn signed into law legislation that had passed by wide margins in both houses to regulate fracking, or hydrauling fracturing. The bill was the result of an agreement hammered out between drilling interests and environmentalists, and Quinn boasted it gave Illinois the best environmental protections in the nation.
But the devil is always in the details. It’s the Department of Natural Resources’ job to translate more than 100 pages of legislation into rules governing fracking. It’s complicated because no one is allowed to talk to each other ex parte, i.e., in private.
When the DNR put out a first draft of the regulations, no one was very happy, as often happens with complicated legislation. Environmentalists thought the rules were weaker than the compromise legislation envisioned, and the drilling industry had its own objections. And some grass-roots environmentalists have been complaining all along that the mainline environmental groups that participated in the legislative negotiations caved.
“We do think the DNR needs to go back to the drawing board on these rules because they are not as strong as the law,” said Jack Darin, director of the Sierra Club’s Illinois chapter. “We viewed the law as a floor, not a ceiling, in terms of protections. … Given the consequences of a mistake or an accident and the great difficulty of remediating contaminated groundwater, we need to make sure these rules are as strong as possible from the get-go. … We don’t think these rules are good enough to protect the public.”
The Sierra Club has been barraged with criticism by fringe groups on this issue, so it’s possible that things have just gotten too hot for the organization.
But Jack Darin stuck his neck way, way out on this thing, so DNR needs to accommodate his concerns as much as humanly possible.
Now.
*** UPDATE *** The Illinois Manufacturers’ Association claims that some groups are attempting to use the rules process to renegotiate the bill. From an IMA letter to DNR…
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Another new Rauner clip surfaces
Friday, Jan 10, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* So, does Bruce Rauner really believe in raising the minimum wage? Or is this just a position of convenience to allow him to escape the perils of his previous demands to cut the wage by a dollar an hour?
We may gain some further insight into Rauner’s thinking from this audio clip. Rauner appeared on Springfield-area tea party leader Fritz Pfister’s WMAY radio program in September. Have a listen…
* In case you can’t listen, here’s the exchange…
PFISTER: “Will raising the minimum wage actually help the people it’s intended to help, or will it harm them?”
RAUNER: “No, it’s a very bad idea, it’s a terrible idea.
“We’ve already got one of the highest unemployment rates in America, in fact the second highest of any state and far and away the worst unemployment rate in the Midwest.
“And raising the minimum wage will only devastate job opportunities for young people and lower income folks that need jobs first and foremost, rather than try to force businesses and interfere in pay scales that are competitive that allow businesses to thrive and hire people.”
He really needs to explain why he can now support raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour when he claimed it would “devastate” job opportunities and how he was previously so against “interfering” in pay scales. Yes, he says he wants to couple that hike with business-friendly law changes, but what, exactly does he want to do? And how realistic are his ideas?
* Meanwhile, a Tribune story cuts down Rauner’s attempt to explain away his position on lowering the minimum wage by saying it was just a “flippant” remark…
Though Rauner sought to indicate he was rushed in giving an inarticulate answer at the Quad Cities forum, Rauner and his three foes for the March 18 GOP nomination had been provided the questions in advance, according to an email sent to the campaigns by the event’s organizers.
Oops.
* Also, here is how the Quad City Times reported on that December candidates’ forum where Rauner said he wanted a cut in the minimum wage…
The four candidates got mostly business-centered questions. All opposed an increase in the minimum wage
Oy.
* The Dispatch did pick up on it, but buried it near the end of its story…
The candidates agreed that taxes and regulations need to be cut, and oppose efforts to raise the minimum wage. Mr. Rauner went further than his rivals on the minimum wage by saying it should be cut.
The minimum wage in Illinois is $8.25 but Mr. Rauner said it should be cut to the federal rate of $7.25 to make the state more competitive in attracting jobs.
Gov. Quinn wants to raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour and argues that the $8.25 rate is insufficient to keep workers out of poverty.
What a difference a month makes, eh?
And it should be noted that while Rauner’s Republican opponents whacked him but good this week for proposing to cut the minimum wage, they were standing right there on the same podium with him in December when he initially made the remarks and didn’t utter a peep.
* In other news, Mayor Emanuel jumped on the bandwagon…
“And I think the idea that anybody would even cross the mind of thinking about reducing it when the idea should be about how to expand it, strengthen it and make sure all of the other types of investments from health care to college costs are affordable and accessible to middle class families,” Emanuel said. “And the idea that you would reduce it is actually an idea that looks backwards and actually takes us down.”
* And in other news…
[Steve Shearer], the treasurer and chair of a new committee aimed raise money to combat Rauner, said he could have launched a C-4 SuperPAC where donors would have been shielded. Instead, he has an independent expenditure committee where he will promote transparency.
“My effort is designed to be 1000 percent transparent,” Shearer told the Sun-Times. “It’s an independent expenditure committee. I have nothing to hide about this. This is all about informing Republican voters about the whole Bruce Rauner. Obviously, we’re in a Democracy and we want to provide voters with information to vote. It’s up to them to do what they want with it to the degree they find it credible.”
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Rate Rutherford’s new video
Friday, Jan 10, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Sun-Times writes about Dan Rutherford’s new campaign video…
The video, a prelude to what future ads might look like, stays upbeat and away from mud slinging in the four-way primary. It’s thin on issues but gives you a snapshot of the candidate’s homegrown background, including that his family ran a pizza place when he was younger.
Puff video? Of course. But outside of Bruce Rauner’s “Shake Up Springfield” ad campaign, this is the first peek we’ve had into what other candidates may have to offer up in the run-up to the March 18 primary.
Some of the conversations between Rutherford and business owners or factory workers are a bit awkward. But cut down to 30-second videos for ads with a voiceover, there’s potential.
He’s gonna need a lot more than intro spots. Just sayin…
* Watch and rate…
Dan Rutherford for Governor of Illinois - Bio from Dan Rutherford on Vimeo.
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Ballot troubles for Hardiman, Sanchez
Friday, Jan 10, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* There’s an interesting turn of events in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. Tio Hardiman’s running mate may have some problems staying on the ballot. And that could raise some fresh, tough questions about Hardiman’s ballot access.
The State Board of Elections delayed a ruling yesterday and may decide next week. Kurt Erickson reports…
At issue is whether the political newcomer’s running mate, lieutenant governor candidate Brunell Donald of Chicago, submitted petitions containing her correct address. […]
Donald acknowledged Thursday she recently moved but failed to change her voter registration.
“I was registered to vote at my old address, not my new one,” Donald told the Lee Enterprises Springfield Bureau Thursday.
For state election regulators, the case is potentially precedent setting because of a change in state law that now requires governors to pick their lieutenant governor candidates before the primary election.
If Donald is ruled ineligible for the ballot, there is no case law providing a roadmap for determining whether Hardiman would remain eligible to stay on the ballot against Quinn.
If they kick Donald off the ballot and not Hardiman, this thing will definitely wind up in the courts for quite a while.
* Meanwhile, Cook County Board candidate Al Sanchez is also having troubles. Tribune…
A county election board hearing officer heard arguments Wednesday from an attorney representing Robert McKay, one of three Democrats running against Sanchez in the March 18 primary, as well as a lawyer for a resident of the South Side and south suburban district. The lawyers contended that Sanchez should not be allowed to run because he remains on supervised release following a prison term for rigging city hiring to benefit political foot soldiers under former Mayor Richard M. Daley.
State law allows a convicted felon to serve on the County Board, but election lawyer Adam Lasker said Sanchez can’t legally put his name on the ballot until he’s finished serving his parole. Lasker noted that Sanchez had to sign a statement of candidacy swearing that he is eligible to vote. Since Sanchez can’t vote until he’s finished his federal sentence, he’s not eligible to run, Lasker contended.
“He’s not eligible to be a qualified elector, he’s not eligible to hold the office. And he had to be when he swore on his statement of candidacy form, on that date, when he swore ‘I am a qualified elector, I am qualified to hold the office,’” Lasker said. “Those are false swearings. Because at that time he was not qualified.”
Sanchez lawyer Dan Johnson countered that what matters is that Sanchez was free from prison when he officially became a candidate last month. And Johnson said Sanchez will petition to have his supervised release terminated in July, well before he would take office if he won.
He’s still listed as “challenged” on the county’s website.
* The Sun-Times editorializes…
By law, municipal offices are off-limits to convicted felons. So are school boards — last year a Cook County judge booted the Thornton High School District 205 board president because he had a felony record. But under the state Election Code, a felony on the resume doesn’t appear to bar a felon from running for the County Board, so the board is the first place felons look when they decide to run for political office. The Legislature should put a stop to this by amending the Election Code to extend the municipal ban to other elected offices.
We’re sympathetic to people who want to rebuild their lives and careers after serving time. They’ve paid their debt to society and deserve a second chance. But not in elected office. There are plenty of other careers they can pursue. Putting felons in charge at any governmental level sends a miserable message. […]
Let’s update the state’s Election Code to close the County Board loophole. Let’s make it clear we’re all for ex-offenders rebuilding their lives, but they have no place holding public office.
Thoughts?
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