Call It A Comeback
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/9rFKOarA1n8" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/xU86QmhFwwM" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
Reload and if you only see code, the player should show up eventually.
I’ve added a small list of cycling blogs–the one I visit the most is Trust but Verify that covers the daily details in the Landis doping allegations. He’s also been nice enough to link here when I discuss the case. I’ve been following the entire pro tour this year far more and so you’ll probably see more posts on cycling. Don’t worry, it’s still primarily a state and national politics blog.
While the below will probably get me ridiculed as Rich was during the bus tour, I actually came to that conclusion before I spoke with Doug Kane and Becky Carroll. I had a talk to discuss it with them scheduled and went to do my homework and came away with the general conclusion that this was probably the best we could do in the short term.
But the good news is that the administration is doing a far better job communicating with the public. The bus tour Rich went on was the first signal most of us noticed and I was surprised that after 4 years I and some others on the blogs were contacted. While it won’t stop valid criticisms of the administration, better, more open communication will help them overcome the automatic skepticism many of us have. I found Doug to be very bright and level-headed about the plan meaning able to admit the problems, but put them in perspective and while Becky still has a tendency to spin, was very forthright on the politics.
I’m still expecting more legal troubles for the administration and like all administrations bone-headed moves, but also a better ability to understand what they are thinking and attempting and hopefully communicate clearly on issues of agreement such as the pharmacy birth control rule.
I’ve been critical of the GRT proposal in the past and I will still argue it’s regressive.
The problem is pointed out quite succinctly by Speaker Madigan
Before we finish the budget in May or June, Illinois is going to need a tax increase,” Madigan said. “You’ve heard it many, many times — we need more and better education. That takes money.”
Madigan held an open forum for about 100 students, faculty and the general public Wednesday at the College of Lake County’s Lakeshore Campus in Waukegan.
About a dozen people asked the Chicago Democrat questions ranging from increased funding for CLC to health care to immigration.
Madigan’s answer to several questions was a tax hike, but he was noncommittal on the source of the increase.
“Funding for community colleges has been about 7 (percent) to 8 percent from the state and the remainder is picked up by taxpayers and tuition,” Madigan said. “That is contrary to the one-third system that has deteriorated over the last three to four years. We need a tax increase, and funding for community colleges will be one of the issues.”
He’s non-committal about the form of that increase and he’s probably smart to do so in order to negotiate.
However, the Blagojevich administration essentially got this right. I don’t often say this especially after I’ve taken a position on what they are doing, but a GRT is probably the least bad of the solutions available.
A few things seem obvious to me though many on the right will disagree out of ideology alone.
The state doesn’t take in enough money to continue to support education, infrastructure, and health care.
The state has long term obligations that due to years of neglect are not capable of being met.
The state isn’t paying its bills on time though it’s getting better.
In 2002, when I endorsed Blagojevich I pointed out that both Jim Ryan and Blagojevich were lying about fiscal issues and the bill would come due eventually. The bill is due and Blagojevich is trying to pay it. I can fault him for taking too long, but not for trying.
I don’t like the tax he has proposed, but I dislike it less than alternatives such as HB 750. HB 750 does a better job of alleviating the property tax issue, but not in a way I’m comfortable. The property tax is somewhat progressive even if the rapid rise in Cook County is too much too quick. Moving that revenue to an increase in the flat tax income tax is very regressive and the increase in taxes on services would be somewhat dramatic.
The GRT, on the other hand, is somewhat regressive, but less so. Any consumption tax is a problem, but this is a broad based tax that even with the pyramiding effect at the maximum looks like a 2.5 percent increase–less than the increase in sales taxes in HB 750 and broader in the effect. The retail sale of food will be exempt and that is modestly (very modestly)alleviating.
I imagine the tax will undergo some changes before it passes including another increase in the gross revenues that trigger the tax (I imagine 5 million would be pretty reasonable) and I’m guessing we might see som mechanism to alleviate property taxes. I would prefer an increase in the standard deduction for individuals, but that would also lead to an increase in the rate so I’m not sure of the overall effect.
Adding to the package, HB 750 only funds education better while this proposal will lead to universal health care in Illinois–something that can no longer wait. The mechanisms of the bill seem reasonable especially the reinsurance for costs about $40,000 at about 80 percent by the state meaning catastrophic costs will be significantly reduced keeping plans reasonably priced. I’m somewhat agnostic as to other details largely because while I think it is essential to put in place, a national program will be put in place in the next few years. If Illinois negotiates that well, it may well be able to reduce some of the tax when that plan is put into place.
There are plenty of things to complain about in the Blagojevich administration and I’m sure I will, but he’s trying here and probably has the best idea for the immediate future. I’d like to see a move towards at least a progressive personal income tax, but that’s a longer term goal. In terms of business, a GRT might well be the most efficient and least disruptive mechanism for the state to adopt instead of trying to track down profits and allocate them to Illinois done business.
Hayden was brought into the CIA as an intelligence professional when President Bush fired Porter Goss, who had retired from Congress to go to Langley at the president’s request. Goss thought he had a mandate to clean up an agency whose senior officials delivered private anti-Bush briefings during the 2004 campaign. The confusion over Valerie Plame’s status suggests the CIA gave Waxman what he wanted, even if the director of central intelligence seemed confused.
Dusty Foggo asshole. He wasn’t cleaning up anything.
Why the Sun-Times still runs his crap is a mystery. Earlier in the article Novak attempts to make a particular distinction between undercover and covert that is hysterical:
At the Gridiron, I heard Hayden tell me he referred to Plame only as ”undercover.” He apparently said the same thing to Toensing, who testified as a Republican-requested witness at the March 16 hearing. On April 4, she wrote Hayden that in three Gridiron conversations ”in front of different witnesses you denied most emphatically that you had ever told” Waxman ”that Valerie Plame was ‘covert.’ You stated you had told Waxman he could use the term ‘undercover’ but ‘never’ the term ‘covert.’ ”
That contradiction concerned Toensing, a former Senate staffer who helped draft the 1982 Intelligence Identities Act. At the hearing, Waxman menacingly challenged Toensing’s sworn testimony that Plame was not ”covert” under the act. Accordingly, she asked Hayden to inform Waxman ”you never approved of his using the term ‘covert.’ ”
The confusion deepened when I obtained Waxman’s talking points for the hearing. The draft typed after the Hayden-Waxman conversation said, ”Ms. Wilson had a career as an undercover agent of the CIA.” This was crossed out, the hand-printed change saying she ”was a covert employee of the CIA.”
Who had made this questionable but important change? Hayden told me Tuesday that the talking points were edited by a CIA lawyer after conferring with Waxman’s staff. ”I am completely comfortable with that,” the general assured me. He added he now sees no difference between ”covert” and ”undercover” — an astounding statement, considering that the criminal statute refers only to ”covert” employees.
Mark Mansfield, Hayden’s public affairs officer, next e-mailed me: ”At CIA, you are either a covert or an overt employee. Ms. Wilson was a covert employee.” That also ignores the legal requirements of the Intelligence Identities Act.
Could someone who is like an editor sit down and have an intervention with this asshole and explain to him he helped out a CIA agent who worked on weapons of mass destruction? Furthermore, Toensing at the hearing admitted to not having discussed Plame’s status with anyone who would actually know.
The entire canard that Plame wasn’t covert was started by Toensing and her husband on cable channels and yet they had no information to make the claim.
No, this isn’t anything about the Bush administration, it’s about the United States’ Anti-Doping Agency which is entrusting the retesting of some of Floyd Landis’ B samples to the French lab that by any account is grossly incompetent.
Bonnie DeSimone (the best American writer on cycling in the mainstream press) covers the story for ESPN.
The panel hearing doping accusations against Tour de France winner Floyd Landis has granted the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s request to have a French lab test backup urine samples taken during the race, even though the “A” samples collected simultaneously tested negative for performance-enhancing drugs.
USADA wants the testing done because results could possibly corroborate other evidence in the case — even though under international anti-doping protocol, the results cannot be considered a positive test, according to an arbitrators’ March 17 ruling obtained by ESPN.com on Wednesday.
Both the A and B samples, which are divided from one sample provided by the athlete, must test positive before an athlete can be sanctioned. B samples are not normally tested if A samples come back negative.
Landis and his legal and public relations team are vehemently protesting the B sample testing, saying it violates his rights and standard laboratory and anti-doping procedures, and contending that the French lab is unfit to conduct the tests.
The French lab is horribly incompetent having mislabeled samples involved in the investigation already. More troubling is that if the samples already came back negative, why would additional samples add evidence other than of the unreliability of the lab in question?
No court in the United States would accept a positive finding now or perhaps declare any positive finding as evidence of reasonable doubt. Of course, no court in the United States would accept the practices and chain of custody mistakes the French lab made in the first case.
And for the record, I don’t know if Floyd doped and that’s the problem. I never will. The practices or mispractices by the French lab will never offer a clear valid answer to that question and that is what is most infuriating about the case. As a fan, I won’t be able to know if Floyd Landis rode one of the most incredible rides ever in the sport, or if he cheated. I have lost my ability to celebrate the race or mourn the race. I just do not know and cannot know given the scientific malpractice by the lab, WADA, and USADA.
But the decision also raises another question in my mind. Testosterone stays in the body for some time and Landis would have had it in his system for other tests he took during the days around the positive test–yet those came back negative. This is dismissed by WADA and USADA for some reason that I simply cannot follow.
There is an obvious thing to do here–have an outside laboratory test the results that does not have an interest in finding evidence. The continued reliance on the French lab demonstrates a lack of concern for fairness and reasonable due process for Landis.
Got to hand it to Brad Cole–he’s loyal–SRCP did ads for both Jim Ryan in 2002 and Topinka in 2006. Not the best track record here.
First–correction it wasn’t KOMPAC, the explanation from the initial reports of the media buys were the PAC from Virginia. This was confusion from the previous donation, but the ad buy is directly from the Cole campaign and is being bought by Stevens, Reed, Curcio, and Potolm a GOP firm apparently hired by the Cole campaign–and thus not subject to any disclosure yet since we had the 30 day reports completed.
They are very proud of doing the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth Ads. Dandy.
But Brad Cole will tell you how awful negative campaigning is….
As noted earlier this morning here, and confirmed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates this afternoon, “Tours of duty for members of the U.S. Army will be extended from 12 months to 15 months effective immediately.”
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer:
“The Defense Department announcement today that all active-duty Army soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan will serve three months longer than the usual standard undercuts the President’s claim that Congress is straining the military and keeping soldiers from their families – and exposes it as nothing more than empty political rhetoric.
“Military leaders have made it clear that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have strained our military. That is why Democrats inserted an additional $2.5 billion for troop readiness in the Iraq Accountability Act.
“I commend our brave servicemen and women for their dedication to our country and have no doubt that they will continue to serve with distinction. But it is time for the President to sit down with Democrats for a real discussion on how to forge a new direction in Iraq that protects our nation and our soldiers.”
Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel:
“What a difference a day makes. Yesterday, extending tours of duty was ‘unacceptable’ to the President. Today, it is Pentagon policy. American troops and taxpayers are paying the price for a war with no end in sight.”
The announcement comes only one day after President Bush stated:
“The bottom line is this: Congress’s failure to fund our troops will mean that some of our military families could wait longer for their loved ones to return from the front lines. Others could see their loved ones headed back to war sooner than anticipated. This is unacceptable. It’s unacceptable to me, it’s unacceptable to our veterans, it’s unacceptable to our military families, and it’s unacceptable to many in this country.”
Is who is paying the staffers on the ground? Cole’s reports don’t list any salary payments and there are no payments for staff listed in the database as benefiting Brad Cole. Given the reports of the staff being on the ground for some time, that’s very curious.
ArchPundit