I’ll be Listening to the Radio While Watching the Bears on ESPN
ArchPundit
Amen.
July 2003
The Other Part of the Miquelon Story
is in Kass’s column today.
Amiel Cueto, the imprisoned, yet soon-to-be-released southern Illinois political boss, recently received a coming-out present.
His enemy, Miriam Miquelon, the woman who put him behind bars for using his law license to protect the gambling rackets, is now out of her job as U.S. attorney of the Southern District.
So, as Cueto prepares for one of those welcome-home red meat political dinners, Miquelon leaves the prosecutor’s office under a cloud.
Miquelon won’t discuss the alleged relationship which is fine, but such a relationship is inappropriate. It isn’t illegal however, and it may or may not be prohibited by DOJ rules. Kass misses this point, but makes an equally strong point that most of the complaints are meant to destroy her credibility so they are suspect.
She does strongly deny that she investigated political opponents and without evidence that she did, I’m highly suspect.
Costello Endorsement Hits
And it is Dan Hynes. I don’t have a particular problem with Dan Hynes and I like him in general, but I’m more than a little frustrated at the Party Leaders playing footsy with a dirty politician like Costello. Obviously it is a losing strategy to not get him in your corner as Vallas learned, but when do you call a crook a crook?
He sells out African-Americans to the St. Clair machine, he his good buddies with Amiel Cueto, and he was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Cueto case. What does it take? An actual conviction like Cosentino?
Senate FEC Reports Are In
And man is Hull spending a lot.
But we knew that.
Interesting is that the reports of Dan Hynes having a hard time rasing funds were greatly exaggerated.
Of the non-millionaire Democrats in the race, state Comptroller Dan Hynes raised the most over the past three months: $947,662, bringing his campaign total to $1,844,727. Hynes had spent $284,608 since last year and had $1,560,226 left in the bank.
Now, perhaps that picked up towards the end of the quarter, but he is doing okay.
Obama is doing well,
State Sen. Barack Obama raised $878,359 during the period, bringing his total to $1,412,224. Obama had spent $325,347 and had more than $1 million in the bank.
As is Chico,
Chico raised $477,751 over the past three months, bringing his total to $2,258,317. Chico had spent $914,480 since entering the race and had more than $1.3 million left.
Though it appears that his fundraising is slowing a bit. He needs a good buzz to keep the money coming.
Washington is having problems,
Health care official Joyce Washington raised $95,811 in contributions during the period and donated another $230,000 of her own to her campaign. Washington had spent $62,135 since entering the race and had $439,293 left.
She can’t self-finance and that take isn’t going to do it.
But who kows what she is really trying to do.
Maybe It Is Just Me…
But if I were to target Rod Blagojevich as part of a broad effort to make Illinois more conservative, I’d pick someone a hell of a lot more likeable than Patrick O’Malley. For one, he can’t win his own primary because Republicans dislike the guy so much and for two, he ran those hysterical commercials where he ranted and raved about Jim Ryan sending his (O’Malley’s) negatives up.
It’s fine to rail against the Combine, but you gotta be slicker.
Rauschenberger is running for Senate so they probably didn’t want him out front, but while sarcastic and tart (as Roesser put it) as he is he is somewhat likable.
Top Referrers…
I thought I’d pay tribute to those who I get traffic from.
The largest one day referral was Joe Conason for the article on the CCC and John Ashcroft. It killed the server.
On other days though,
4063 21.01% http://www.dailykos.com/
495 2.56% http://www.dailykos.com
242 1.25% http://dailykos.com/
567 2.93% http://atrios.blogspot.com/
543 2.80% http://rittenhouse.blogspot.com/
519 2.68% http://hnn.us/articles/900.html
440 2.27% http://www.polstate.com/
428 2.21% http://www.cursor.org/
334 1.72% http://www.mydd.com/
279 1.44% http://deancalltoaction.blogspot.com/
209 1.08% http://bodyandsoul.blogspot.com/
207 1.07% http://www.blogforamerica.com/
204 1.05% http://www.talkleft.com/
195 1.00% http://www.maxspeak.org/gm/index.htm
126 0.65% http://www.liberaloasis.com/
113 0.58% http://hnn.us/articles/1348.html
112 0.57% http://www.unsubscibe.com/
I’ve eliminated blogstudio itself and blogs no longer running.
Kos generates about 25% of referrals and so he gets a big hand as does everyone up there including Jeff Weigand who was one of the first to link to me. MyDD, Rittenhouse Review, Tom Spencer, Atrios, Max Sawicky, Jeralyn Merritt and many others also pull in a lot of hits and I thank all of them. Not listed above is Off the Kuff and Crooked Timber who also bring a lot of traffic–with Crooked Timber creating a serious uptick since it started.
So just thanks–and let me know if you link to me, I’ll add you to the blogroll.
Black Helicopters and Cyclists
Damn cyclists are taking over Jersey County. As usual, Joyce Morrison is damn near incoherent, but damn funny.
If you can’t navigate around traffic, of which cyclists are, don’t drive.
Bicycles have been around for a long time and brought joy to many. If used responsibly, a bicycle is a wonderful source of exercise and recreation. But are we being prepared to be forced to use bicycles for our major mode of transportation? Could it be this activity is purposely being placed into an elitist status with no restrictions and licensing in an effort to lure people into this mental mode?
At Least Lugar is Preparing Us
While the President tries to avoid responsibility for Yellowcake, Dick Lugar is pointing out the obvious in Iraq and the war on terrorism.
–It will take time
–We can’t do it alone
–We need a peacekeeping force
My only complaint,
Let’s stop dismissing nation-building as "international social work," somehow unworthy of a great power. To the contrary, it’s a basic step toward victory in the war on terrorism.
To be fair, he made this point in 2000, but he should have been screaming it from the floor of the Senate.
French Plot to Derail Lance
Yes, I know they claim it is an agricultural protest, but send troops now to help Lance defend the yellow jersey. Apparently a protest held up the peloton for 90 seconds today, but there was no harm and no off-roading. Tomorrow is a ‘rest day’.
Title IX Supporters: Remeber Wellstone
The Trib points out that benefits of Title IX and suggest the Bush administration’s decision to not make any changes is a good thing.
Yes it is, and in memory of Paul Wellstone, remember his and Jim Leach’s effort to offer scholarships to those in Olympic Sports–wrestling is one example of this.
On another related Jim Leach note, there is a push to break the wall between commerce and banking–such a move would allow corporations like Walmart to run banks. Leach stopped Clinton and Phil Gramm from doing this during banking reform due to the consequences on the economy as a whole. Connecting the two areas creates intimate ties between industry and banking that leads to all sorts of perverse incentives. Such ties are cited as one reason the German economy is often bogged down during mild downturns. Unfortunately, Leach is no longer head of the relevant committee so such a move may gain steam.