Emil Jones: Comedian
ArchPundit
Said to Phyllis Schlafly during ERA hearings in the Illinois Senate
"My only regret about bringing up this proposed constitutional amendment is that it has resurrected you."
That’s beautiful.
May 2003
Death Penalty Reform Goes to the Guv
The Illinois Senate passed the Death Penalty Reforms with John Cullerton out in front,
The Senate voted 56-3 on the bill that makes it easier for murder suspects to defend themselves and gives courts extraordinary power to set aside death sentences.
"This is a revolutionary change that will be a model for other states that have the death penalty,” said Sen. John Cullerton (D-Chicago), the bill’s sponsor.
The legislation sent to Gov. Rod Blagojevich Thursday requires juries to consider more factors in deciding whether a defendant lives or dies, prohibits executing mentally retarded people, gives defendants more access to police evidence, lets judges file dissents from jury verdicts and gives the Supreme Court new power to set aside "unjust” sentences.
It also gives the accused greater access to genetic tests that might exonerate them and sets up a pilot program to study the best way to do police lineups of suspects.
The bill is good, and far better than I thought possible. In one of my few nods to the Legislature, they put aside petty political posturing in favor of strong reform that doesn’t perfect the system, but makes it better. There is always political hay to be made out of crime and punishment bills, but for the most part, Legislators did the right thing.
Premcor Suit
The State of Illinois is finally taking on Premcor and going after the Hartford refinery environmental problems. While Premcor wasn’t the primary owner when the problems started, they are the responsible party now. The RFT did a fairly good job on the issue previously.
This is the second refinery Premcor has had a problem with in the Midwest with Blue Island, Illinois being the other. In both cases, Premcor didn’t start the problems, but bought problem refineries and failed to adequately clean them up. The IEPA refused to act strongly, presumably because of concerns that jobs would be lost. What the IEPA missed is that the jobs should have been lost on outdated and dangerous refineries that had no business being on-line.
Don’t even start on the Port Arthur refinery.
Ritual Slaughter, Gay Rights, and Creationism
Is the first headline I found at Phillip Johnson’s new blog. Give him points for catching one’s eye.
The great thing is he doesn’t stick to the Intelligent Design schtick so you get Johnson’s ignorance on a whole variety of issues!
Obama News
In their weekly mailer, a bit stripped from the Capitol Fax gives some insight into who Simmons entry into the Senate race benefits,
The recent entry into the Democratic U.S. Senate primary of a wealthy trial lawyer from Downstate should help Barack Obama’s chances, according to a number of political analysts this week. The candidacy of John Simmons, who has pledged to spend $10 million of his own money on the race, threatens the chances of Dan Hynes and Blair Hull – two Chicago-based candidates who are vying for Downstate support, analysts state. They add that Simmons’ entry should help Obama, whose campaign is focusing on Chicago and suburban voters and urban communities Downstate. For example, Rich Miller of Capitol Fax reported on May 21 that "Barack Obama may benefit the most" from a Simmons bid, which would split support among the candidates in populous Madison County -Simmons’ home.
IOW, Simmons will pick up votes in Metro-East that aren’t African-American and that seems to be an accurate prediction. The question is can Simmons have any impact at all.
He Just Can’t Win
Bush takes on Sharon (finally) and then Evangelicals start taking shots at his Israeli policy.
Pressuring Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon regarding his country’s position on the Palestinians could incur the wrath of the 50 million-strong evangelical community in the U.S. the president hopes will "turn out in record numbers next year," observes the newsweekly.
It describes the evangelical Christian-Jewish alliance as a "typical marriage of faith, principle and convenience," but adds that "mere politics is involved, too." For conservative Christians want to "shed their image of intolerance." "Newsweek" reports that conservative activist Grover Norquist says evangelical believers are "tired of being branded anti-Semites."
One-time presidential nominee candidate and Christian campaigner Gary Bauer told the magazine that Bush’s failure to call for the ouster of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and his sending Secretary of State Colin Powell to meet with Arafat, was "more than those of us who support Israel could take."
Bauer recently organized a protest letter signed by two dozen evangelical leaders that warned President Bush against being soft with the Palestinians. Speaking at a Zionist conference earlier this month, "The Washington Times" said, Bauer said: "The land of Israel was originally owned by God. Since He was the owner, only He could give it away. And He gave it to the Jewish people."
Groan. Now if Bush is successful he gets points from me. Hell he gets points now for pushing Sharon to do the right thing. Sharon admitted the other day that overseeing Palestineans is bad for his democracy and he is right (well way right, but that is a different story). Actually it is the same story. Most Israelis are to the left of Sharon–maybe not far left, but if he is willing to move on creating a Palestinean state with guarantees of Israeli security, what exactly is there to be upset about?
For some-rapture politics. Bauer himself isn’t such a person, but many evangelicals think the West Bank must be under Jewish control for the Second Coming and so they don’t want the President to push for an independent Palestinean state.
On one hand you can dismiss these views as those of kooks-and be correct–James Inhofe is a kook. On the other hand, a significant group of evangelicals believe it. Will it hurt Bush in the election? Probably not–with even Bauer not arguing that position, Bush is relatively safe. The danger is death by paper cuts if Evangelicals get in minor, but repeated piques over issues. For references see the Green Party.
Write Your Senator
Nuclear Nonproliferation should be the single most important issue being addressed by Washington. Currently the Nuclear Threat Reduction Campaign is urging people to contact their Senators to ensure several provisions from Curt Weldon are included in the Defense Authorization Bill
Among the key Weldon provisions included in the defense bill are two that address what a recent Harvard study, commissioned by the Nuclear Threat Initiative headed by Ted Turner and former Senator Sam Nunn, called the "first and most urgent priority" in the battle to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists: protecting "nuclear material at the most vulnerable sites around the world." The first such measure calls for acceleration of a U.S. Department of Energy program to help install basic security measures at all Russian nuclear materials storage facilities. The urgency here is evidenced in the admission in the department’s own FY 2004 budget documents that by October 2004 there will still be enough nuclear material to build 16,000 atomic bombs in Russian facilities lacking the most basic security protection, such as fences, strengthened doors and locks, and bricked up or barred windows.
The second of those provisions authorizes a new initiative to conduct a worldwide cleanout of bomb-grade plutonium and uranium from poorly guarded civilian facilities, such as research reactors, outside the former Soviet Union (FSU). There are hundreds of these very vulnerable facilities in scores of countries, and they are tempting targets for groups like al Qaeda. The bill makes $78 million available for "disarmament and nonproliferation" programs outside the FSU, which should make it possible for this effort to move forward quickly.
Among the other major provisions derived from H.R. 1719 that were included in the defense bill are those that would:
***Require the formulation of a comprehensive plan for U.S. programs to assist the states of the FSU in securing and disposing of their huge stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons and direct the President to appoint a senior official to coordinate those programs and give that official sufficient staff and other resources to do an effective job of coordination.
***Encourage a U.S.-Russian collaborative upgrading of Russia’s dangerously faulty and inadequate missile early warning systems, which a RAND study released May 21 concluded have "deteriorated significantly" and pose "extremely troubling" risks of a Russian launch of a nuclear attack on the U.S. through accident or miscalculation.***Mandate efforts to work with Russia to develop comprehensive inventories of the two countries’ nuclear weapons and materials and exchange the data in the inventories, with special emphasis on developing detailed information on the smaller, tactical warheads that are especially susceptible to being stolen and smuggled into the U.S. by terrorists.
***Establish a Congress-Russian Duma working group devoted to "reducing nuclear weapons dangers," including ways to fight the acquisition of nuclear weapons by terrorists.
***Establish exchanges between U.S. and Russian nuclear scientists to promote scientific answers to helping safeguard nuclear material.
Make It So!
Lotta Irony at the Leader
First, Lott has gone and gotten himself a blog. I’ll be adding this to the links under funny stuff.
Second, Lott is interviewed in the Illinois Leader with this quote,
Some years ago I was teaching a class that dealt with crime issues. I thought my students would be interested in reading some papers on gun control. I started looking for papers for them to read and was shocked at how poorly done the research was. I decided to do my own study.
I couldn’t make this stuff up folks!
He seems to be getting better at including all of the facts concerning the Appalachian Law School story,
There was a case last year that got a lot of attention, an attack at Appalachian Law School in Virginia (in which three people were killed). When the attack started, two students at the school, who had law enforcement backgrounds, ran to their cars, got their guns, came back, pointed their guns at the attacker and ordered him to drop his gun. When he did so they tackled him and held him until police arrived.
Go read Tim Lambert for lots more on recent Lott happenings.
Mike Kelleher Will Not Be Running For the US Senate
In one of two stories today that required some (well, not much) actual reporting, Mike Kelleher confirms that he will not be running for the Illinois Democratic nomination to the US Senate in 2004. While he had not been listed as one of the likely candidates in most places, I had heard persistent rumors and so I asked him.
Kelleher, for those who are not familiar with him, ran a spirited race in the 15th Congressional District in 2000 coming within six points of Republican Tim Johnson who won the open seat vacated by Tom Ewing. While losing a race might not seem like a resume builder, Kelleher ran in what has traditionally been one of the most conservative Congressional Districts in Illinois and actually won McLean County–an amazing feat for Democrat. He then ran with Rod Blagojevich for Lieutenant Governor, but was swamped with Pat Quinn’s name recognition in the primary.
Initially, Kelleher was considering a run in 2002 against Johnson, but he was redistricted into Jerry Weller’s 11th Congressional District which was far less friendly than the 15th. To do this, Bloomington-Normal was split in two right down the middle leaving Kelleher in the 11th by a few blocks.
Johnson is, ummmm…let’s say a character. I’ll leave the fuller explanation for a time when he has done something really dumb. Certainly that is part of the reason Kelleher was able to do so well, as is the changing nature of McLean County. An interesting map I came across indicates McLean has the lowest percentage of individuals without High School Diplomas. With this base, he may have been an early benficiary of the argument made in The Emerging Democratic Majority.
With the crowded field the Senate race would have been a very tough one for Kelleher given the nature of the candidates already in the field. Hull has millions, Hynes has organization and name recognition, Pappas has Name ID, and Obama has organization. Oh, and this Simmons character has millions.
UP DATE: First, the link to the map doesn’t work. However, the two maps are present at the end of the link showing the rate of those with high school education over age 25 and the rate of those without a high school education. Champaign and McLean both have very high rates of high school education and very low rates of those without a high school degree. In a completely inside joke–Fred Walk taught me better.
Second, I indicated that Mike Kelleher was redistricted out of the 15th by a few blocks. I made the mistake of going by memory and was wrong. He was redistricted into the 11th by 1/2 block. He was quoted in the Tribune as saying, "If I go to the end of my driveway, I can through a baseball into the 15th district." I’ll cover the redistricting shenanigans in a later post, but he was not the only one who received such treatment. Luis Gutierrez’s primary opponent in the 2000 election was similarly excluded from Gutierrez’s new district.