* From the Journal Star…
Well, that’s a first — a major party candidate running for statewide office who does not respond to invitations to interview or to share her issue positions, even ignoring direct appeals from local party officials intervening on this newspaper’s behalf.
So it is with Tammy Duckworth, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, who with her conspicuous absences here in both the primary and general elections, has given us every indication she intends to be the U.S. senator of Cook County, not of Illinois. In our experience, if you don’t even see a candidate during a campaign, when they need something — votes, with their very livelihood depending on them — the odds go up considerably that you won’t lay eyes on them once they’re safely seated.
Duckworth, 48, of suburban Hoffman Estates, is a two-term congresswoman with a compelling personal story — she lost both legs in an attack while serving her country in Iraq in 2004 — but she has done little to earn the Peoria area’s support. She’s made but a handful of quickie visits over the last couple of years — two of them in Labor Day parades — in which her engagement with potential voters can generously be described as limited.
On the issues, she falls short in two major areas critical to central Illinois’ economy. She is not a free trader, which is not good news for export-benefiting farmers or for major employers/manufacturers such as Caterpillar. A lot of jobs are tied to such trade. It goes without saying that Illinois is a major farm state, which shines a very bright light on the low mark given Duckworth by the American Farm Bureau; she tied for lowest in the Illinois congressional delegation in 2014.
Duckworth is a viable candidate who’s leading the polls, but bottom line, we’ve never met her and her no-show automatically forfeits this newspaper’s endorsement.
Yikes.
She was just in Springfield, so she does travel Downstate.
*** UPDATE 1 *** I’m told by the Duckworth campaign that the paper “never reached out.”
“They did not formally invite us, and we knew there was no chance we’d get it,” I was told.
What a weird year.
*** UPDATE 2 *** She was just there yesterday. It’s even on the PJStar’s website…
Tammy Duckworth promotes infrastructure spending in East Peoria visit
OK, it was East Peoria, but whatevs.
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*** UPDATED x1 *** Let’s be careful out there
Friday, Oct 21, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Oy…
A 48-year-old Murphysboro man has been charged with intimidation and resisting a peace officer in connection with an alleged threat on Monday to burn items inside the Republican Committee Office in Murphysboro.
Robin Leon Little was charged with one count of intimidation, a Class 3 felony; one count of resisting a peace officer, a Class A misdemeanor; and one count of disorderly conduct, a Class C misdemeanor, according to a news release from Jackson County State’s Attorney Michael C. Carr. Little was taken into custody on Monday.
According to court documents filed by Carr, Little communicated to Teresa Easton that he would burn items inside the Republican Committee Office, at 1332 Walnut St.
When Sgt. Timothy Legere tried to arrest Little, he ran from the officer and “then struggled and fought with the officer,” according to the complaint.
*** UPDATE *** With a hat tip to a commenter…
Jackson County Republican Chairperson Gloria Campos claims Little was pounding his fists on the walls of the headquarters, and making physical threats toward Illinois State Representative Terri Bryant (R) Murphysboro, and U.S. Congressman Mike Bost (R) Murphysboro. […]
Three days after Little was arrested, officials are calling a fire “suspicious” after it burned a Department of Human Services office just up the road from the republican headquarters.
The building houses the DHS office, as well as the offices of Bryant, and State Senator David Luechtefeld (R) Okawville.
Roberts says that as of October 20th, investigators have not confirmed any correlation between the two incidents.
The fire is considered ’suspicious’ according to Manko, but Roberts says there is currently no indication of political motivation.
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Question of the day
Friday, Oct 21, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Gov. Rauner is to Speaker Madigan as the Chicago Cubs are to _____ ?
The Chicago White Sox, LA Dodgers and Cleveland Indians are not allowable responses.
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*** UPDATE *** Twitter appears to be accessible again, as is Constant Contact, which handles my subscriber e-mails. The afternoon edition has just been sent.
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* Washington Post…
Someone attacked a key part of the Internet’s infrastructure Friday morning, causing some major services such as Twitter, Spotify and Airbnb to be inaccessible for some users.
The attack targeted Dyn, a company that helps people connect to websites, with a huge amount of traffic in an attempt to knock the service offline, according to Dyn’s director of internet analysis, Doug Madory. The digital assault appears to have started around 7:30 a.m. ET, and Dyn said it was resolved at roughly 9:20 a.m.
The service Dyn provides is called the Domain Name System. It works sort of like a phone book for the Internet - it translates URLs into the numerical IP addresses for the servers that actually host sites so your browser can connect to them.
This type of attack is commonly known as a distributed denial of service, or DDoS attack. The effects of the attack were intermittent, and many of the details remain scarce, although it appears to have primarily affected users on the East Coast, according to Dyn.
The initial attack came at 7:10 Eastern time, lasted about two hours and then started again around noon. I can still pull up Twitter on my phone, but I can’t get to it to load on my desktop as I write this.
* TechnoBuffalo…
Is it possible this is the latest from the Mirai botnet? Mirai, if you’re unfamiliar, was a botnet that used unsecured devices in the internet of things – printers, coffee machines, IP cameras, open Linux computers and the like – to send an unprecedented 620 Gbps of data at security researcher Brian Krebs’ website. We talked to hackers following that attack and, now that the Mirai code is open sourced, learned that these sorts of threats are only going to continue and increase in size.
“Once they’ve been hijacked, the devices can be switched from sending normal amounts of data to and from your computer, to sending massive amounts of data at a single target,” I explained in my report about DDoS attacks this month. ” Ultimately, the traffic from hundreds or thousands of these devices can exceed the throughput available to a website or a service, denying additional requests access.”
Dyn provided assistance to Krebs, which is why some think the two attacks are connected.
* TechCrunch…
After the attack on Krebs’ website, the code used to build the botnet leaked online, making more massive DDoS attacks all but inevitable. Although it’s not clear yet whether an IoT botnet is behind the attack on Dyn, it certainly would not be surprising.
Oof.
* More from Krebs…
“The size of these DDoS attacks has increased so much lately thanks largely to the broad availability of tools for compromising and leveraging the collective firepower of so-called Internet of Things devices — poorly secured Internet-based security cameras, digital video recorders (DVRs) and Internet routers,” Krebs said today.
What all these connected devices have in common is the existence of security vulnerabilities caused by a flawed software design or gross negligence on the part of their manufacturers that all often use the same factory passwords for all their devices, OVH said in a recent post about the attack on its networks.
“While our internal investigation (which is still ongoing) has identified close to 145,000 infected connected devices as the source of the recent attacks, network service provider Level3 has recently assessed their number at more than a million,” according to OVH. “So we’re only at the beginning of the problem, not to mention the fact that Internet connection rates are constantly growing, notably due to the ever-increasing availability of VDSL, SDSL, and fiber optics.”
Ugh.
* So, why is this relevant to us? Well, I’m hearing and reading about how some tech types are growing worried that this sort of attack could be launched against election authorities on November 8th.
A massive hit like this wouldn’t alter the results, but it could delay the results from being posted online for several hours or even a few days.
Brace yourselves. We’re in a new world.
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Rewriting history
Friday, Oct 21, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From an Illinois Policy Institute piece called “The cost of crossing Madigan”…
(S)ometimes just casting a vote for Madigan isn’t enough. That’s what state Rep. Helen Satterthwaite, D-Champaign, found out in 1989.
Madigan easily won the speakership again in 1989 by a vote of 67-51. Satterthwaite was one of those 67 votes. But in casting her vote for Madigan, she offered an explanation for the record:
Mr. Secretary, in explaining my vote, I want to indicate that there are many of my constituents who have indicated to me that they feel that I should not support Mike Madigan for reelection as Speaker of the House. In fact, many of their comments have been down right unflattering both to him and to me for supporting him. They feel that he really has not recognized the dire situation that our educational system is in across the State of Illinois and the impact upon that system of inadequate funding. I’m sensitive to those concerns of my constituents. Yet, I am casting my vote today for Speaker Madigan in the hope that during these next two years of legislative action, we will be able to change that image of Mike Madigan. I certainly hope, Mike, that we can entice you by invitation to come to spend some time in District l03 so that you can get to better understand our viewpoint on the problems that we see created by a lack of a strong educational system and support for that system and that we can have the opportunity to try to better understand your point of view as well. Please don’t let us down, Mike. We look to you for the Leadership out of this dilemma. I cast my vote for Mike Madigan.
At the time, Satterthwaite chaired the Higher Education Committee and was vice chair of the Elementary and Secondary Education Committee. By the time 1991 rolled around, she had been stripped of those leadership roles. And by 1993 she was out of the Illinois House altogether.
* Um, actually, Satterthwaite was elevated by Madigan to the position of Assistant House Majority Leader. House leaders back then usually didn’t hold onto their committee chairmanships when they were moved up the ladder.
And Satterthwaite didn’t lose her 1992 reelection bid because of Madigan. Instead, the new Republican-drawn map put her into a district with a GOP incumbent. From a 1991 Tribune story called “Top Democrats To Be Squeezed By GOP Remap”…
Reps. Grace Mary Stern, John Matijevich, Michael Rotello, Geoffrey Obrzut, Michael Curran and Helen Satterthwaite are in Republican-leaning districts with GOP incumbents. Satterthwaite and Matijevich are also among Madigan`s assistant majority leaders.
She only got 39 percent in that ‘92 race.
This is not to say that Madigan doesn’t exact revenge. He sure as heck does. But not on Helen.
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* IDNR went downhill fast under Rod Blagojevich. Pat Quinn signed a license fee increase into law to stem the carnage, but the decline continued. And the impasse has just made everything worse…
Illinois has neglected a state park at Carlyle Lake so badly that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is ending its lease with the state and taking back the property.
The Corps of Engineers, in a press release, said it’s terminating a lease with the state and taking back South Shore State Park.
“Due to several years of reduced budgets by the state of Illinois and lack of maintenance, the South Shore State Park facilities have become degraded, resulting in unsafe conditions and minimal useable recreation facilities,” the Corps of Engineers stated in a press release. “As a result, the Corps of Engineers has terminated the lease and closed the area to allow for work to be completed to make the area safe for public access. A portion of the area is scheduled to reopen in 2017.” […]
“The intent was for the state to provide recreation opportunities to the public,” Taylor said Friday. “Obviously, the state has had budget issues, and they haven’t been able to maintain the park, which led to a lack of opportunities and unsafe conditions. Based on that, and the noncompliance with the standards of the lease, it was terminated.”
What an embarrassment.
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More horrible pension news
Friday, Oct 21, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From Moody’s…
On p.2 of its Weekly Credit Outlook for Public Finance released late yesterday (attached), Moody’s notes the recent announcement by the State of Illinois (rated Baa2/negative outlook) warning of possible delays in monthly pension contributions in the current fiscal year is credit negative, and could prompt the state’s underfunded retirement plans to sell assets to pay retiree benefits. Such delays would most likely affect state contributions in November, when tax revenues are typically caught in a seasonal slowdown.
Illinois has the lowest rating and the largest unfunded pension liabilities of any state. The adjusted net pension liability (ANPL) of the state’s five plans (covering teachers, state employees, Illinois public university employees, state judges and members of the legislature) total about $193 billion. This unfunded liability is 437% of the state’s own source revenues, compared with a US median of 85%. Illinois’ ANPL will keep rising because the state pays less than the “tread-water” amount that covers current-year benefit accruals and interest on existing net liabilities. Deferral of state contributions, and the possible resulting asset sales to pay retiree benefits, would likely exacerbate this trend.
Meeting the tread-water contribution standard would require a significant hike in actual state pension payments (about 44% based on fiscal 2015 data). Pension contributions are the state’s primary source of budget stress. In the fiscal year that began July 1, the state’s pension contributions are almost $7.9 billion, or almost $660 million on a monthly basis. Most of that, about $600 million per month, is paid through the state general funds. The top-priority general fund monthly commitment, paying debt service on the state’s general obligation bonds, only amounted to about $190 million in October. Despite the lack of a full budget in the current and preceding fiscal years, Illinois’ pension funding statute (Public Act 88-0593) contains a continuing appropriation for pension contributions.
The state’s backlog of unpaid bills reached $9.9 billion on October 19, according to the Illinois comptroller’s office, which seeks to identify high-priority needs, such as bills requiring 30-day processing to meet federal reimbursement requirements. Monthly pension contributions do not fall into a high-priority category, because under statute they can be made up later in the fiscal year.
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More flowery Madigan praise from Bradley
Friday, Oct 21, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From the Illinois Republican Party…
Did Rep. John Bradley’s 2011 radiant praise of Mike Madigan, likening him to Abraham Lincoln, send chills down your spine?
Well you’ve seen nothing yet.
Last year, John Bradley was so fortunate to be able to nominate Madigan again, and boy did he deliver.
Bradley was “honored” to nominate “the man” Michael J. Madigan for Speaker.
He compared Madigan to none other than Benjamin Franklin, saying both were “of the people” and “servants of the people.”
And he even claimed that Mike Madigan, the same person who fought redistricting reform and term limits, protects our democracy.
Watch for yourself here
JOHN BRADLEY: I’m honored to be a part of this celebration of the institution of the House of Representatives. Its constitutional integrity as a political body, and its historical place as a co-equal branch of government. And most importantly, to second the nomination of “the man” Michael J. Madigan, who in our time in history has protected this institution, its sovereignty, and its independence. Benjamin Franklin, constitutional delegate and Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly said of the institution of the House of Representatives, “they are of the people, and return again to the people to mix with the people, having no more durable preeminence than the different grains of sand in an hour glass. Such an assembly cannot easily become dangerous to liberty. They are the servants of the people, sent together to do the people’s business and promote the public welfare. Their powers must be sufficient, or their duties cannot be performed.”
Speaker Madigan, as delegate to our Illinois constitutional convention, as our Speaker and a student of history, recognizes our duties and our need for strength to protect democracy and as a check to the other branches of government.
When this body has come under attack, Speaker Madigan has fiercely led our constitutionally appointed duties and so secured our independence.
Pope Francis recently expressed what a public servant should be. “Every man, every woman, who has to take up the service of government must ask themselves two questions. Do I love my people in order to better serve them? Am I humble, and do I listen to everybody, to diverse opinions, in order to choose the best path? If you don’t ask those questions, your government will not be good. Speaker Madigan embodies this. He listens, and although there isn’t always agreement, he respects the institution and all of its members. And we know that both sides, both sides, have a strong leader who will protect this institution, protect this house. I stand in second to the nomination of Speaker Michael J. Madigan as speakers of the 99th General Assembly of the Illinois House of Representatives.
Thoughts?
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Because… Madigan!
Friday, Oct 21, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* BND…
“Mike Madigan has managed to suck all of the life, energy and money out of this state, to the extent that we are now bankrupt,” [Rep. Dwight Kay (R-Glen Carbon)] said. “We’re penniless. In my view, he needs to go, and we need to hit the restart button in Illinois. Mike Madigan is a roadblock to bipartisanship.” […]
“The first thing we need to do to get the budget balanced is to see that Mike Madigan goes home,” Kay said.
* Sometimes, both sides kinda do it…
Sensing the disdain in Southern Illinois for the Springfield brawl between Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, both Rep. Dan Beiser and his challenger, Wood River Township Supervisor Mike Babcock, are distancing themselves from “Chicago politicians” and attempting to appeal to voters in District 111 through what they believe are sensible approaches to government.
“The middle-class families of the metro-east are under assault from Chicago politicians and a governor who is seeking to drive down the wages of workers and decimate the programs that many folks rely on,” Beiser wrote in response to a BND questionnaire.
Babcock made a similar attempt to cast blame for the Illinois budget crisis, in which the state has gone for more than a year without funding for a variety of services, but put the emphasis on Democrats.
“I want to protect our families from the reckless tax-and-spend policies of Mike Madigan,” Babcock wrote in response to the questionnaire.
* And sometimes, it doesn’t even make sense…
Democratic incumbent state Sen. Laura Murphy and Republican challenger Mel Thillens fended off accusations from one another about being beholden to party leaders and special interests during a public debate in Des Plaines.
The campaign for the 28th Senate district seat has grown in visibility in recent weeks with TV commercials, radio spots and mailers funded by party money and super PACs.
During a debate Wednesday night at Des Plaines City Hall, Murphy criticized Thillens for receiving “dark money” from Liberty Principles PAC, which released a commercial last week claiming House Speaker Mike Madigan has helped fund Murphy’s campaign. Murphy said she hasn’t received “one cent” from Madigan or the Democratic Party of Illinois, of which he is chairman, and her campaign filed a cease-and-desist order to have the commercial taken off the airwaves.
* More on this topic from the esteemed Kerry Lester…
A look at Murphy’s most recent campaign finance filings shows no direct contributions from Madigan or the campaign funds he controls, though it shows contributions from other Democratic House members. Proft tells me he’s standing by the ads. “We won’t cease and desist telling the truth about Laura Murphy,” he says.
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Looking on the dark side
Friday, Oct 21, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Amanda Vinicky…
The latest data shows the number of unemployed Illinois residents is at its lowest since September of 2007.
But officials with Governor Bruce Rauner’s administration say Illinois is still lagging when it comes to job growth.
Illinois Department of Employment Security spokesman Bob Gough says the state has nearly 40 thousand fewer jobs than peak employment, in pre-recession fall 2011.
“When you look at the dichotomy we have in Illinois, the Chicago metro, say, is doing better than downstate Illinois. But even that growth is anemic when you compare it to other major metros,” Gough said Thursday.
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* Mark Konkol…
Since [Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel] admitted a code of silence existed in the Police Department in December there have been at least four attempts to depose the mayor as part of federal civil rights lawsuits alleging police misconduct, according to court papers and records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
Each case is different, but the reason those lawyers want to depose Emanuel is the same: to prove their client has a valid “Monell claim” in court that allows people to seek cash damages from the city for the actions of employees which, in these cases, are police officers.
To do that, civil rights attorneys must prove in court that city officials, including Emanuel, knew of the existence of a policy, custom or practice that effectively permitted the misconduct alleged in a civil rights lawsuit.
City Hall lawyers have actively fought to stop the boss from being forced to answer questions about the culture of lying to cover up misconduct in the Police Department. […]
In a federal case involving allegations that an intoxicated cop accidentally shot a boy in the head, city attorneys argued that Emanuel shouldn’t be deposed because the mayor is “not a policymaker for the city,” according to court papers.
You gotta be kidding me.
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Duckworth has huge cash advantage
Friday, Oct 21, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Tribune…
Republican U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk was outraised by more than 3-to-1 this summer by Democratic challenger U.S. Rep. Tammy Duckworth, federal campaign paperwork showed Thursday.
Kirk reported raising nearly $1.2 million for re-election bid from July through September, compared with $4.1 million for Duckworth during the same time period.
Kirk had more than $3.1 million in July but spent almost $3 million during the third quarter, leaving him with nearly $1.4 million to start the home stretch this month. Duckworth had more than three times that amount of cash at the beginning of October at $4.3 million.
Duckworth has now outraised Kirk over five consecutive quarters, including the April-through-June period this year when she raised $2.7 million to just more than $1 million for Kirk.
* Duckworth also has a new radio ad featuring President Obama…
This is Barack Obama. I want to take a minute to tell you why I believe so strongly that Tammy Duckworth is the right person to fill my old Senate seat.
Tammy knows what’s important to our families. That’s because she’s walked in our shoes. Her father worked in a factory, so Tammy has a real plan to help rebuild American manufacturing by rewarding companies that create jobs here.
Tammy worked her way through college with the help of Pell Grants and student loans. So she hasn’t just embraced my plan for free community college in the future, she wants to allow students to refinance their loans to make college affordable now.
And she’s the only candidate to offer a genuine criminal justice reform plan to make sure the system works for everyone.
It matters who we choose to represent us in Washington. So join me. Vote for Tammy Duckworth, a terrific leader who will never stop fighting for all of us.
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