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IFI Calls on Garcia to Step Down for “bigoted” statements

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Petey’s at it again, but even beyond the normal unintentional humor, Petey outdoes himself. While the Governor has fumbled this whole deal terribly and needs to have a get rid of NOI moment, it was pretty predictable that some would try and expand upon the fiasco. IFI does it by calling on Garcia to step down from the commission.

One of the voices:

“Catholic Citizens of Illinois has called for the immediate removal of Rick Garcia from the governor’s Commission Against Discrimination and Hate Crimes because of his own hate mongering. We are outraged by his attack on Cardinal Francis George, calling him a ‘bigot.’

As Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal George has a duty to defend the teachings of the Catholic Church against homosexuality as a “disordered lifestyle” and to oppose efforts to undermine marriage as it was established in the beginning by God.

“We are offended by Garcia’s frequent attacks on the Catholic Church and all Christians for their belief in biblical values. We repudiate his attacks on the Illinois Family Institute which has been effective in the defense of marriage and efforts to place a referendum on the ballot to define marriage in Illinois as a union between one man and one woman.

“Anyone who has studied the agenda of the homosexual rights movement will understand that a major platform for establishing acceptance of homosexuality in America is to silence the churches by vicious attacks and name-calling. We will not be silenced.

“The type of hatred Rich Garcia spouts on a regular basis has no place on a commission financed by the taxpayers and he must be removed from the Commission at once.”

Mary Anne Hackett
President
Catholic Citizens of Illinois

What is the Catholic Citizens of Illinois? Kind of a local Catholic League

Guess who is on the advisory board?

William Donahue of secular jew fame. He’s got about the same interesting views as Farakhan does on Jews:

WILLIAM DONAHUE, PRESIDENT, CATHOLIC LEAGUE: I spoke to Mel a couple of weeks ago about this. And I don?t think it really matters a whole lot to him. It certainly doesn?t matter to me. We?ve already won.
Who really cares what Hollywood thinks? All these hacks come out there. Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It?s not a secret, OK? And I?m not afraid to say it. That?s why they hate this movie. It?s about Jesus Christ, and it?s about truth. It?s about the messiah.

Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. I believe in traditional values and restraint. They believe in libertinism. We have nothing in common. But you know what? The culture war has been ongoing for a long time. Their side has lost.

You have got secular Jews. You have got embittered ex-Catholics, including a lot of ex-Catholic priests who hate the Catholic Church, wacko Protestants in the same group, and these people are in the margins. Frankly, Michael Moore represents a cult movie. Mel Gibson represents the mainstream of America.

Now, I don’t really like Garcia’s choice of language, but he was talking about one person, not the evil secular Jews. Yet, the good Catholic Citizens of Illinois are happy to have an over the top bigot on their advisory board while calling for Garcia to step down.

Pot-Kettle issues are abundant here.

Illinois Congressional Races

Luis Shows a Little Temper

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But hey, it was at Tom Tancredo, so go ahead.

Congressional debate about immigration has gotten ugly, according to Thursday’s edition of Roll Call.

Excerpts from the Roll Call story follow:

###
We knew immigration was a contentious issue and all, but wait until you hear the epithets that Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) hurled at Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), Congress? chief immigration critic, after a live debate they had on CNBC Wednesday. Sneak preview: They include ?bigot,? ?racist? and ?KKK.?

After the lunchtime show in the Cannon Rotunda ended, Gutierrez made a joke about how the ?immigrant? (him, though he was born in Chicago) showed up on time while the ?Gringo? (Tancredo) was late. Gutierrez told Tancredo that he had a ?really ugly policy.?

The way Gutierrez?s office tells the story, Tancredo and the two aides who accompanied him followed Gutierrez to his office. Tancredo kept ?following him, touching him, following him, touching him,? Gutierrez spokesman Scott Frotman said.

At that point, Gutierrez pretty much snapped. ?Have you ever eaten in a restaurant?? he asked Tancredo, adding with feigned disgust, ?How could you eat from the plates touched by those nasty illegal immigrants??

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Read the full, registration-restricted story here.

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A Very Fair Column, Stroger Needs to Release His Medical Records

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Lynn Sweet argues he should release his records to demonstrate whether he can actually serve or not.

Let me add, given this news, so does Lane Evans. I thought it was a cheap shot to go after his health as long as he was making meetings and votes. If he is starting to miss them, he should allow the voters to judge. Most likely, it is time to step down–if he does it now, the Party can choose a candidate to run in his place. While not ideal, it isn’t exactly a Lipinski switch either.

ICFST

He’s Done

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More fun from the FTN:

Mr. Brady just needs to understand that if Topinka does win on Tuesday, and Brady finishes no better than third ? his name is Mud. He?s done. And he WILL have a Primary challenge for his State Senate seat in 2008.

No. I’m not a fan, but Bill Brady works hard and he fits his District very well. He has good ties with State Farm and the Republicans there. There might be some grumbling about him from time to time from the McLean County oldtimers, but Family Taxpayers Network is a non-entity in McLean County. If anything, his relatively good run has earned him some more respect.

This entire screed by FTN is one of the most over the top tantrums I’ve ever seen thrown in politics. At least when Kit Bond went nuts in 2000, everyone knew he was sauced and he could joke about it.

It’s not as if its some over the top supporters. Roeser is the FTN and Roeser handpicked Oberweis because he’d do what Roeser would tell him to do. Roeser interviewed Rauschenberger and as weird as Steve has become, he wouldn’t give up his platform for Roeser’s. Obie would. FTN’s former Director is Obie’s campaign manager. FTN is the Oberweis campaign minus the ice cream.

ICFST

Circle Em Up!

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AND FIRE!

Thank God for Jack Roeser I couldn’t make this stuff up.

We have just a few questions:

If Bill Brady isn?t in cahoots with Judy Baar Topinka and staying in the race just to help her win by splitting the conservative vote ? then why has Brady so frequently attacked only Jim Oberweis? (It?s simply wrong to say it?s because Topinka gets no conservative votes. Polls prove that Topinka gets lots of conservatives ? the uninformed ones ? therefore all the more reason that an honest conservative would take Topinka to task first.)

I’m one of the few who don’t see a bright future for Bill Brady. Yeah, he’s an improvement over Gordon Ropp, but that’s damning at feint praise at best. Gordon was a nice enough fellow, but his biggest concern in the world was the state soil. That said, Brady isn’t in “cahoots” with anyone, but his own ambition–and he might just prove me wrong.

With something like 12 million people in Illinois, Jim Edgar and Bob Kjellander, along with all the other surviving dinosaurs lucky enough not to be wearing orange jumpsuits ? decided to get behind the one person with less integrity than Rod Blagojevich.

Never mind that Edgar handed Roeser his ass in a primary and remains one of the most popular statewide officials to have held office, he’s evil because he’s not as doctrinaire as Jack would like.

Before Jack continues his whinefest, he might notice that while Kjellander might be a schmuck, Jack is the one who seems to think he’s above the law and continues to not comply with fines levied by the State Board of Elections.

It’s really, really tough to break campaign finance laws in Illinois. The only way to do it is to not disclose your donations properly and Jack was talented enough to find a way to do that, but feels he can lecture the rest of the state on ethics.

Most bizarrely, the man has me defending Bill Brady, a guy who has his most notable achievement as starting a Bible Study debate between his supporters and Sam Ewing’s supporters in the 15th District’s Republican primary in 2000 resulting hysterically in the election of Tim Johnson. The Pantagraph has a long history of hysterical letters to the editor, but that series is one of the best I’ve seen.

What’s really beautiful though, is that if Oberweis somehow were able to pull off a win, he’s now angered just about every Republican who won’t vote for him making an already easy task of beating him, even easier.

It’s a beautiful piece of work to watch–from a distance. Sort of like a Supernova.

Uncategorized

Claypool Rejoinder

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One of the big questions on any poll is what the likely voter model is. In essence to get a fair idea of who is likely to vote you screen respondents for their past behavior, interest in the election, and even self-report likelihood in some cases. Claypool sent out a rejoinder to the Trib poll stating:

For those who work closely with election stats, the poll published in this morning?s Chicago Tribune raises more questions than it answers. But, when you put it together with our own tracking data from this past week, it begins to paint a picture of how Forrest will win this race.

Our poll, a more extensive and in-depth survey of those who actually have a history of primary voting, shows Forrest just one point ahead of John Stroger. And, among the subset of voters who say they?re ?paying close attention to the race,? and are likely to vote on Tuesday, he enjoys a 7 point lead. With a sample of 700 voters conducted by the Bennenson Strategy Group, we feel very confident in these numbers.

When we re-weight the Tribune poll to more accurately reflect the turnout numbers from past primary elections, the newspaper?s numbers come out looking a lot like ours:

46 Stroger/40 Claypool (with a 5% margin of error).

Meanwhile, what do we make of the newest voice to weigh in on the race, that of former President Bill Clinton? Clearly, President Clinton is repaying an old political debt with his radio ad for John Stroger. And as someone who doesn’t live in Cook County or pay taxes here, he couldn’t be expected to know the facts of Stroger’s record.

Ultimately, it?s the people of Cook County who will decide this election. And Forrest has the support of those who care about improving health care for our neediest residents, about stopping the beating of young men and women at the Juvenile Detention Center, who care about the ever-rising tax bills that burden working folks throughout Cook County.

With one week to go, we are more confident than ever that Forrest will prevail, winning the opportunity to fix what?s wrong with Cook County.

Obviously, I’m biased, but without examining the entire poll I cannot and wouldn’t vouch for the above without seeing the full polling results. It’s not implausible, but it’s also highly dependent upon how strong and successful the GOTV effort for Stroger is–if SEIU and Madigan are working hard for him, he’s likely to get a good turnout. If not, it’s hard to imagine that John Stroger has the sort of passionate following to bring out voters not dependent upon his position without help.

This year’s election seems especially dependent upon turnout. That’s a cliche in talking about elections, but there doesn’t appear to be a strong sense of voter excitement about this years primary election. If there are two groups excited, it’s probably Democrats at the left end of the Party and Republicans at the Right end of their Party. For the Republicans that means an advantage for Oberweis, for Democrats I sense that might help Claypool with white liberal voters, but it’s hard to tell. The biggest benefactor of such a turnout would likely be Giannoulis in the Dem Treasurer race (I have no real horse in that race).

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