Call It A Comeback
Pat Quinn learns to fundraise. Between his two accounts he has just under $2.3 million on hand which puts him at the same COH as Brady. I honestly thought he’d completely blow this fundraising cycle, but apparently he’s becoming a politician. Good for him and good for the state.
Daniel Biss has $244,000 on hand for his effort to win the 17th State Rep District. His opponent had a good haul and has $41,000
On top of it Daniel only got a little bit of help with one staffer and some software from the State Party. That means this is all raised on his own.
Mike Wilson really channels Bill Brady better than Bill Brady. It’s a new Bill Brady folk commercial parody and it’s great.
I can’t avoid it since it involves both reducing subsidies on oil and gas subsidies and improving infrastructure…
Giannoulias’ National Infrastructure Fund would establish an independent board comprised of urban planners, economists, engineers, geologists and other experts in the field. This board would prioritize the nation’s large-scale infrastructure needs based on their national and regional economic benefits. The highest ranked project would receive funding through direct federal grants, loan guarantees and private sector matching funds.
To avoid future reckless earmark projects like the “Bridge to Nowhere,” the Fund would essentially strip politics out of the decision-making process. While Congress would continue to allocate the funds, the selection of projects would be made by the independent board, which would assess each project strictly on its merits, and rank the proposals based on their efficiency and economic benefit.
Giannoulias’ proposal is deficit-neutral and would be funded by cutting the tax breaks for big oil companies, which would make $45 billion available over the next decade. Instead of benefiting a few oil companies that already enjoy billions of dollars in annual profit, this taxpayer money will benefit the entire nation by connecting transit systems, updating the nation’s electric grid, streamlining freight rail lines, and repairing roads and bridges.
To give you some sense of the mix on energy subsidies the graphic at this site does a decent job. I would actually look at the graph different than it is broken down looking at Fossil fuels and Corn/Ethanol together as they produce carbon dioxide while the Capture and Sequester and traditional renewables are far better for mitigating climate change. This eliminates nuclear as a separate issue which I think is a good way of handling it since nuclear is good on climate, but we don’t have a suitable method for waste storage. The results of the graph though: $87 billion for carbon dioxide producing energy sources to $14.5 Billion for climate neutral energy sources over 2002 to 2008. Even if you exclude ethanol you still have $70 billion in subsidies for traditional fossil fuels. The question being is for what possible reason do we need to subsidize oil and gas production and even with coal why it needs a subsidy if the argument is that it’s cheap is its selling point?
Oil and gas companies are immensely profitable and yet still receive government support while infrastructure in the United States suffers.
From the campaign:
DEERFIELD, IL – In another clear show of support from Illinois voters, Democratic Congressional Candidate Dan Seals today announced a consecutive strong fundraising quarter in the race for the open seat in Illinois’ 10th District.
In the second quarter FEC reporting period that closed on June 30, Seals received $556,156 in contributions. Seals will also report having $792,000 cash-on-hand.
“I’m very appreciative of all the grassroots support we’ve received in this campaign,” said Seals. “Whether I’m talking to people on the phones or at their doorsteps, what we’re hearing loud and clear is that voters want fiscally-responsible, independent leadership from someone who shares their values – and I will be that voice. In Congress, my first job is to create jobs, and this quarter was another strong push in that direction.”
Nearly 80% of contributions to Seals’ campaign come from individual donors.
Dan Seals is a business consultant and lecturer at Northwestern University. The Democratic Nominee for Congress in Illinois’ Tenth District, Seals is a former Director at GE Capital and Group Manager at Sprint. He holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and an MA in International Economics from Johns Hopkins University. He lives in Wilmette with his wife, Mia, and their three daughters.
Seals has drawn national attention and support in his race to win the seat vacated by Republican Mark Kirk.
Decent quarter. Not blowing the barn doors off, but the burn rate doesn’t look too bad if I’m right and he should be getting some national attention as the race continues.
Reports raising $750,000 in the relatively short time he’s been in the race. While Illinois only reports twice a year right now, Claypool has only been in the race for about 3 months so this is especially amazing.
There’s not much else to say, other than he’s put the call time in from what I understand and some of those haggard pictures of him from the spring are from long days of fundraising and lots of nos. It should pick up and apparently has been lately, but the reality is he’ll be less well funded than Kirk. It’s going to be a tough race, but with help from DC (the DSCC should be going to the donors telling them it’s safe given recent polling) and continuing his call time, it’s still a race at least.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYdVXDYnV-c[/youtube]
When Jennifer became pregnant with the twins, we had a minor scare that it was a molar pregnancy because one of the doctors made a mistake trying to do a quickie ultrasound. He was incredibly apologetic, and truly a great doctor so all was forgiven especially since we were then in shock that we were having twins. Molar pregnancies usually are handled with a DNC and if things go really badly, chemotherapy.
This is a case of a different condition and obviously turns out to be one that does not work out. It’s heartbreaking to think of the woman being screamed at as she enters a building to end a pregnancy of a fetus with zero chance of being brought to term.
Yesterday was the second worst day of my life.
The first was when I heard the radiologist tell us that there was a major birth defect with the baby. I have always lived my life believing everyone is entitled to their opinion. Our country was founded on freedom and I have always taken pride in my ability to speak my mind and voice my opinion. I also take special pride in my freedom, because I know how quickly it can be taken from us. Hearing the stories from my two best friends who have fought for our freedom, I will be forever grateful for them and the millions of other men and women who have given me that freedom.
Back to yesterday, there was nothing worse in the world as the protesters telling me that I am killing my unborn baby. REALLY?!?! Are you sure its me killing my unborn baby and not an ultra rare birth defect?? Then the signs saying “God is Pro-Life.” Seriously, if he is pro life then why am I carrying a child that is dying inside me? Or my personal favorite, which was “Take my hand, not my life.” I would love to. But instead I have to sit in a chair staring at these assholes telling me how I should feel and what I should be thinking.
As I looked around I saw many women with their sisters, friends and boyfriends with the same look as I had: FEAR! We all were there for one reason or another but we were all taunted by these strangers who think they know what is best for us. How do perfect strangers know how we feel? As I entered the building I never had such hatred for those people. I wanted to go across the street and tell the ones who just yelled to me that I was killing my unborn child that it was the other way around. The baby was killing me.
Regardless, they have no idea what is going on. But as far as they are concerned I was killing an unwanted pregnancy.
As I looked around the waiting room the only thing I wanted to do was to go over and tell each one of those women that those assholes outside have no idea what they are going through and have no idea that these people are good people. As I woke up, the women who were upstairs are now next to me and I realized that these women are educated. There was a nurse, an executive, and myself a manager.
We were all there for a different reason but no one knows what the reason is. So who is to judge? The people who were yelling at me and the other women definitely have no right to judge us.
As I walked in and they yelled at me and made me feel ashamed I wanted to run and never come back. But I can’t run I have to be here. I knew I had nothing to be ashamed of but they made me feel that way. It got me to thinking that if I feel like that how do the other women feel? How many young women have they scared off from getting help from birth control to counseling about their reproductive health? I wanted to help all the women who were scared off by the judgmental idiots carrying signs. Even if it was just one woman.
While there are some complications to the health of the mother for the particular condition (Sirenomelia) it is not life threatening to the mother. Bill Brady would make the abortion above illegal even though the fetus had no kidneys or bladder and would not survive.
Bill Brady wants to control women’s uteruses because he thinks he knows better. I’m confident he doesn’t.
Generalissimo Francisco Franco George Steinbrenner is still dead.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ynzOehRMQs[/youtube]
Personal PAC, Planned Parenthood, and the Democratic Governor’s Association is filling up the inbox.
This commercial is quite good. As the Dad of twin daughters, this tugged at me more than most political ads do–given I’m pretty jaded about such things. These things do matter. And as much of a doofus as Pat Quinn is, it’s important.
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