Facts Suck Don’t They: Daily Dolt: Illinois Review and Today’s Tosser: Frank Burns
Illinois Review claims that Rahm doesn’t pay property taxes. Not true. Illinois Review has a history of this crap and they seldom issue corrections. People make mistakes–I certainly have, but it’s the ability to correct mistakes that matters.
I’m still trying to get some sleep after having about 4 hours of it in 60 hours surrounding election day and you know, spending time with my family. I don’t generally feel the need to jump when people think I should be posting. In particular when it’s someone who has never been held accountable for making crap up.
The basic problem with many of the conservative blogosphere in Illinois is that they traffic in conspiracies and idiocies. I don’t think Gordy at IlliniPundit has ever gotten a Daily Dolt and there’s a simple reason for that–Gordy is honest and corrects himself when he gets facts wrong and he actually knows something about elections and campaigns. He also understands the scope of elections and how to effectively deal with messages and motivating the base online. Inevitably he’s often called a RINO for it while Gordy is quite conseravtive (same goes for Oneman too.
Getting predictions wrong is kind of a joke every cycle because inevitably no one can figure out every race. However, there’s a difference between fun calls and getting basic facts wrong and repeating them over and over again when people with actual sources do their work.
So let’s start with why Frank Burns is such a dolt:
1) attacking a guy for being a full time candidate when Kirk was also a full time candidate when he first ran
2) Saying the DCCC wasn’t supporting Dan Seals. It wasn’t true and I knew that because I actually have good sources. In fact, they invested heavily in 10.
3) harassing a guy teaching a class and interfering with a part-time job
4) claiming Seals was going to a fundraiser in New York that he had never been scheduled to go to
5) Claiming Dan not being at the DNC was a big deal when it was Durbin who told him to use the time in district
6) deliberately misrepresented the difference between GE’s industrial and home finance divions
Those are all things that I figured out within 10 minutes of asking around or just wouldn’t do. I don’t interfere with any candidate’s employment for obvious reasons. Pointing out if someone is in a crappy business is legit, interfering with employment is not. It’s the sign of a juvenile dumbass who doesn’t understand where politics end and personal lives begin.
What’s funny about all of this, is that none of it had any serious impact–the problem for Dan was his campaign misfired badly and appears to have a very poor field organization amongst many other problems and probably most importantly, Kirk is freakishly good at politics. My biggest mistake was not seeing that.
November 6th, 2008 at
Seals made his employment with Northwestern a legitimate campaign issue by claiming that he was a professor on his campaign literature months before he stepped into a classroom or taught a student, and when he showed up, it was as a lecturer at a night class.
Perhaps you can argue as to whether this night school teacher qualified as a “professorship,” and when exactly it was legitimate to claim as experience might be argued as an issue, but it’s hardly juvenile to discuss it. If you actively insert anything into your campaign as a credential that you tout as a reason for people to elect you (John Kerry reporting for duty, anyone), regardless of whether it might otherwise be “personal,” it’s fair game. End of story. And I certainly don’t know how I ever harrassed or interfered with his job besides what I wrote on my blog. If a public candidate can’t defend himself based on what the voters question, he doesn’t have any business running.
Seals’ issue of employment was never so much as not having a job as not being able to keep one, and then puffing up his credentials (i.e., “I’m a Director of GE”, as opposed to a marketing director).
I could go on, but I think the point is that when you have a candidate that makes so many missteps, people are going to call him on them. Unlike you, I’m a voter in the 10th district, and I had a right to challenge Seals on the garbage he was peddling as credentials.
Next time, I’d find a better candidate for whom to jump to their defense if were you. And, your nasty personal attacks are really quite amusing. It’s clear that Team America got into your head, as well as Seals, Lauren Beth Gash, and the rest of the 10th Dem goon squad. A job well done.
November 6th, 2008 at
So you cannot deal with the fact that you lied your ass off and won’t correct your mistakes.
I think you’ve made yourself clear.
November 6th, 2008 at
When is a professor not a professor?
When Team America says so, dammit.
Again, stay the heck away from his law firm. You’ll get laughed out of the courtroom when he pulls his comedy act before the bench.
Five paragraphs to try and cover up the stench of BS. It’s not working.
November 6th, 2008 at
Of course they call him a RINO, you’re not a real republican (note: not conservative) unless you’re a died in the wool liar.
November 6th, 2008 at
Illinois Review did update the Rahm property tax story with info from the assessor’s office that shows they had it wrong. And in the noble conservative tradition, they then raise more bogus questions although they don’t have comments enabled so no one can answer them:
-Why is Rahm Emanuel’s residence listed on the State Board of Election as 4228 N. Hermitage, while the Cook County Assessor’s website and the Cook County Treasurer’s website have it listed as 4232 N. Hermitage?
Because the house is at 4228 and the vacant lot is at 4232 and they want the mail delivered to the house, not the vacant lot. Either address would be the legal address of this property. but you want the mailing address to be where the house is. It makes no difference that the assessor and treasurer have the other address for the lot and it’s not worth the effort to change it on their records.
- Is Rahm Emanuel’s property tax based on the value of the empty lot at 4232 N. Hermitage or on the value of the lot (4228 N. Hermitage) where his house and his tax exempt, non-profit foundation are located?
It’s one PIN so it’s assessed as one parcel which the assessor’s office lists as class 2-06, residential like his neighbors, not exempt. (They actually *had* this information in the original post and either forgot it or just wanted to create a red herring.)
- Why is the property’s PIN number out of sequence?
Oh, why not? I observe that Rahm’s property and the property next door are oversized lots. Maybe they were subdivided at a different time than the rest of the block. Maybe some lots were combined and new PINs issued. It’s completely unremarkable that PINs don’t go in sequence on a block.
- Is the yearly property tax liability of a home valued at $695,000 in 1998 really only $13,022.60?
Well, in the original post, they say that the neighbors are paying $3K to $5K annually in property taxes. My property is about the same size with a smaller house in a less expensive neighborhood and the taxes are about $5K. Rahm has a bigger lot than most of the neighbors so $13K is in line, maybe even too much. I could recommend a good property tax appeal lawyer who could probably get that reduced for him.
These Illinois Review guys have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about here. They have “questions” about Rahm’s property taxes only because they’re either ignorant or liars.
November 6th, 2008 at
Thank you for doing that–I might front page it because I was too tired to take them one question at a time.
November 6th, 2008 at
“The basic problem with many of the conservative blogosphere in Illinois is that they traffic in conspiracies and idiocies. I don’t think Gordy at IlliniPundit has ever gotten a Daily Dolt and there’s a simple reason for that–Gordy is honest and corrects himself when he gets facts wrong and he actually knows something about elections and campaigns. He also understands the scope of elections and how to effectively deal with messages and motivating the base online. Inevitably he’s often called a RINO for it while Gordy is quite conseravtive (same goes for Oneman too.”
Thank you for the kind words.
I’m still amused that people think, based only on my blogging, that I’m a RINO, given the number of years I’ve spent on the ground campaigning and working for GOP candidates of all stripes.
November 7th, 2008 at
[...] the Assessor’s Office data. These bloggers — Progress Illinois, Sadly No!, Archpundit (here, here, here, here, here and here), and others — were left with no choice but to generate [...]