Call It A Comeback
I tend to be of the opinion that the Senate Republicans are wasting a bunch of money, but if they are going to go after Kotowski, I’m happy to talk about one of the most independent, hardworking, and earnest members of the State Lege all the time. Here’s his new commercial
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6rHm5ElH5w[/youtube]
Talking with people, Aurora is a great person and in many ways a great candidate. That said, great candidates don’t avoid the question like this and they don’t let Mike Madigan’s people dictate the entire campaign. I don’t blame her for the drivel below, I blame her for letting Madigan’s team shit all over the base and local communities.
Terry Cosgrove’s complaint is valid. But it goes far beyond the very important discussion of access to information on reproductive health. It goes to the First Amendment, it goes to local control of libraries, it goes to demagoguing someone who you may disagree with and claiming she’s leaving your children unprotected from child predators. I don’t know many local librarians who would do that, but I do know many who might have better answers for their individual library than what some in Springfield or the Illinois Review think is the best solution.
Pretending Cosgrove and Personal PAC are doing this randomly is nothing more than covering one’s ears and saying you can’t hear anything. The point goes directly to access over information for reproductive health. That’s not irrelevant to reproductive freedom or being truly free to choose. If Austriaco is for mandating filters, she should stand for that. If she isn’t, she should explain why the hell her campaign is sending out this garbage.
From: Friends of Aurora Austriaco <auroraforstaterep@gmail.com>
Subject: Women’s Access to Health Care
To: “Austriaco, Aurora”
Date: Tuesday, October 14, 2008, 1:51 PM
Dear Supporter of Choice:
I wanted to take the time to respond to the e-mail you received from Terry Cosgrove questioning my commitment to women’s health care and education.
The record must be set straight. The fact is that I fully support reproductive freedom and ensuring that women can make informed decisions about their health. Indeed, what is ironic, and perplexing, is that a woman such as myself who will fight to protect reproductive freedoms is being attacked by a group committed to the same goal.
The fact of the matter is that Personal PAC has fully endorsed my opponent, Rosemary Mulligan, in my campaign for state representative, despite my 100% commitment to women’s reproductive freedom. I believe the residents of the 65th District are fortunate to have two pro-choice candidates on the November ballot, which is why it is so discouraging that an organization that is supposed to fight for the reproductive rights of women would spend its time and resources battling a candidate who supports a woman’s right to choose.
For those of you who have supported my candidacy, I want to thank you for your continued encouragement and support. If you have any questions at all about this or any other issue, please do not hesitate to contact me at my campaign office at 847-292-5902.
Very truly yours
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wULyKWNtko[/youtube]
I would hate for a local library to decide how best to regulate internet access. Next you know, they’ll be trying to figure out what books to have in the library. Imagine that.
This is a reprehensible fear mongering ad that completely misrepresents a position against a state requirement for library content filters. Each library is different and all of them can set policy about how to best allow maximum access to the internet while keeping kids safe.
Beyond that, as Terry Cosgrove points out, often the filters ban sites on reproductive health and health in general. Mulligan should be applauded for her stand and Austriaco needs to either address the issue or just lose votes from voters concerned with reproductive rights and the First Amendment.
Taking the position of Illinois Review isn’t the way to beat Republicans.
FROM: Terry Cosgrove, President & CEO, Personal PAC
RE: Aurora Austriacio’s Attacks on Women’s Health Care Information
DATE: October 13, 2008
I want to bring to your immediate attention Aurora Austriaco’s refusal to speak to the media and me about her apparent support of right-wing legislation that would prevent many women of all ages from accessing health care information via the internet. Austriaco and her supporters have been attacking Rep. Rosemary Mulligan (see attached district-wide mailers) for her vote in opposition to internet filters. While the ACLU, Illinois Library Association and the City of Chicago oppose the filters on free speech/1st Amendment grounds, reproductive health advocates oppose them because they prevent women from gaining access to reproductive and, often life saving, general health care resources. It is indeed ironic that Mulligan is being targeted by Austriaco just days after Chicago Library Commissioner, Mary Dempsey, accepted the ACLU’s Free Speech award for opposing these very filters and refusing to install them on Chicago Library computers. Dempsey and Chicago have refused to accept millions of dollars in state funding rather than install these harmful and wasteful filters.
These right-wing inspired filters keep invaluable information from women on family planning, HIV, STD prevention, sexuality, and of course, abortion. Two breast cancer survivors in the past two days have told me their stories of securing second opinions on treatment and getting invaluable information from the internet, most of which is blocked by these internet filters due to word “breast.” Mulligan stood strong AGAINST the right-wing and WITH the women of Illinois in opposing these filters by casting a “NO” vote on HB 1727 (May 2, 2007) along with most other pro-choice advocates in the IL House, including Reps. Nekritz, Hamos, Feigenholtz. Now Mulligan is being attacked for her vote by Austriaco. Austriaco refuses to offer an explanation to the media or answer questions about these attacks, and more importantly, where she stands on the issue of preventing women from gaining access to reproductive health information. Would Austriaco have voted “yes” or “no” on HB 1727 is a fair question for the media and reproductive health care advocates to ask.
Since Austriaco has refused to return numerous phone calls to her by me and several members of the media about this issue, I am hoping that you can prevail upon her to do so. We need answers and we need them immediately. Aurora’s campaign phone number is 847-292-5902 and her home is 847-292-6666. Her email appears above. Please see the attached campaign mail pieces and contact me with any questions. I am also attaching the ACLU fact sheets and academic research on the harmful impact of internet filters. The full House roll-call vote on HB 1727 is available online or I can send it to you.
Thank you very much for your attention to this critical matter. I am sorry to have to concern you with it, but I and members of the media have been left with no other choice by Austriaco.
Michael Sweeney running in the 33rd District against Dan Kotowski, attacked Dan for pay raises even though Dan was one of the stronger voices against them. And Michael took a pay raise as Clerk in Elk Grove Village.
He took that raise even though he didn’t perform his most important function on time in 2006.
From the Kotowski release:
In 2006, Michael Sweeney, Republican candidate for State Senate, bungled the most important
assignment given to the Elk Grove Township Clerk, according to documents filed with the Office of
Cook County Clerk David Orr.
According to the Cook County Clerk’s Office and the Illinois Property Tax Code, the tax levy “must be
filed on or before the last Tuesday of December of the given tax year.” In 2006, the last Tuesday of
December was Tuesday, December 26.
In 2006, the Elk Grove Township filed its annual township tax levy on Friday, December 29, according
to time stamped documents filed with the Cook County Clerk’s Office, Tax Extension Division. The
documents are signed by former Township Supervisor Richard Hall and Sweeney.
In other words, the $2.1 million 2006 township tax levy was filed three days late, exposing the township
to legal challenges to the local tax rate and possibly costing taxpayers thousands of dollars.
Former Republican State Sen. Cheryl Axley, who served as Elk Grove Township Clerk from 1993 to
2005, said the levy filing is a crucial part of the clerk’s job
Axley was defeated by Dan in 2006 and is now endorsing him. My bad, she just joined Dan in issuing statements on this and I read too much into it.
I think Elk Grove Village might deserve a refund on his $3,716 in raises over 3 years.
Usually I try and keep these somewhat local, but this is too much:
That doesn’t mean the Enquirer has suddenly become more credible. It just serves to show you how partisan and unreliable the American news media is today.
Barack Obama’s list of known mentors now includes child rapists (“Uncle Frank” Marshall), racists (Rev. Jeremiah Wright) and terrorists (Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorn).
When is someone going to question how these associations must have warped Obama’s views and render him unstable, and unsuitable for the Presidency?
Let’s start with being the victim of a crime doesn’t make one unfit for office and many people who have been molested go on to lead happy and healthy lives. Those underlying issues show what a dunce Treason Boy is.
Let me suggest that promoting the idea that some sort of trauma might make you dangerously unstable is a really bad idea when the candidate you are backing was tortured in a Vietnamese prison camp for 5 1/2 years.
Just a thought.
Just working for a livin’
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IffvZ2z1WyM[/youtube]
His biggest worry is how to pass a multi-million dollar business to his son.
The worries of the workin’ man.
Kudos to Debbie for keeping a straight face.
While Ozinga certainly does collect a paycheck, it’s a far cry from the median Illinois household income, which hovered around $54,000 last year.
As president of Ozinga Bros., the Homer Glen businessman earned $457,000 in 2007 and $256,000 between January 2008 and April 2008, according to his personal financial disclosure filed with the FEC (which also showed him owning $2.4-$3.1 million in assets).
That salary boils down to about a $19,000 bi-monthly paycheck, before taxes. According to the Wall Street Journal‘s 2007 “Rich-O-Meter,” it also puts him in the top 0.5 percent of American wage earners.
In response to his claim at a separate appearance with Halvorson that he runs “a small business,” Southern columnist Kurt Erickson took issue with Ozinga’s attempt to bill himself as “just a little a little concrete guy”:
RedState wants to know where the coverage is:
Remember John Edwards? Who broke the Edwards story? The National Enquirer of course.
After that coup, the left, which patently refused to mention the Edwards scandal decided that anything the Enquirer wrote about Sarah Palin had to be the gospel truth. They could talk about her alleged affair. They could speculate that her baby was not really her baby. They could go after her kids. After all, the National Enquirer covered it.
Hit the brakes folks.
The National Enquirer now suggests Barack Obama had an underage, gay affair with a pedophile. Yup. That Frank Marshall Davis guy Barry says was his good friend? Turns out he was a perv of the first order and liked young boys.
This post is not intended to spread that rumor. Frankly, if Obama wins, we’ll have our hands full around here making sure folks don’t develop Obama Derangement Syndrome.
But, I wonder if Andrew Sullivan and company are going to aggressively push this story. After all, it came from the Enquirer.
That wouldn’t be an underage, gay affair. It would be child rape you idiot.
Hey Frank James… that’s some breaking news. Wow. Who had heard that before…
You might have looked here when Andy took credit after I pointed out a post on February 1, 2008.
And February 4, 2008
And January 22, 2007 when I picked up the Kos story. I, of course, then remember receiving Andy’s demented rantings about it in 2004.
Breaking news—John Kerry Swiftboated. The Swamp bringing you the best of 2004.
She really told us everything we needed to know four years ago:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvpvlooR6hM[/youtube]
ArchPundit