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Rauschenberger Out as the FTN Favored Son

ArchPundit April 25, 2005 No Comments

C’mon guys, the guy carried Alan Keyes for you–don’t you have any loyalty out there in Carpentersville?

I’m not sure that Roeser is that set on Uberweis yet, but this is hysterical from Pearson:

Which brings Oberweis to today, his third consecutive statewide election campaign.

And to marshal support he has diversified the contents of his dairy barnyard to include a chicken coop, or, more specifically, a guy best known for wearing a chicken suit.
New allies

Joe Wiegand, formerly a paid staffer of conservative businessman Jack Roeser, regularly donned the feathered suit in 2002 in support of Patrick O’Malley, a former state senator from Palos Park. The costume was aimed at portraying eventual GOP nominee Jim Ryan as being afraid to debate Wiegand’s candidate.

At that time, Wiegand was working for Roeser’s Carpentersville-based Family Taxpayers’ Network as its executive director, and Roeser was backing O’Malley to the tune of $400,000. The group is one of several political arms financed by Roeser aimed at promoting his version of “championing a good moral and economic climate.”

This time around, with Wiegand’s involvement, the Roeser allegiances appear to have shifted from O’Malley and, after a brief, unsuccessful dalliance with state Sen. Steve Rauschenberger (R-Elgin), toward Oberweis.

But Roeser has had his share of election losers besides O’Malley. One of them is Wiegand, who got $15,000 from Roeser in a failed primary bid for an Illinois House seat last year.

Via Cross guys again.

Keyes Pulls the Second Debate

ArchPundit April 23, 2005 No Comments

Yep, the Good Ambassador’s site indicates that Debate #2 is unavailable. That would be the ABC debate-which ABC balked at Keyes selling. But most strangely, all three debates are offered as a package.

Like all things Keyes, how odd.

UPDATE: Hmmmm…so how does he offer all three given this statement:

(Editor?s note: Currently, the first and last debates are available under agreement with the debates? original producers–the Illinois Radio Network and C-SPAN, and the City Club of Chicago and WTTW. The producers of the second debate–the Illinois League of Women Voters and WLS–have declined to allow Dr. Keyes to publicly offer videos of that debate.)

Drip, drip, drip

ArchPundit April 22, 2005 No Comments

The Trib is practically giving the Republicans advice on how to manage the DeLay scandals, and fortunately, the Republicans aren’t listening so drip, drip, drip

A charade? Not exactly. Republicans said they acted in good faith in offering to get to the bottom of allegations against DeLay concerning his dealings with lobbyists and other issues.

But this was, in effect, a GOP effort to negotiate the terms of an ethics investigation. The ethical standards and expectations of the House should not be subject to dealmaking. Republicans still haven’t come to grips with that.

The most hollow threat is Hastert’s:

On Wednesday, House Speaker Dennis Hastert suggested that Democrats had another motive for their boycott of the Ethics Committee. He said there were “four or five cases out there dealing with top-level Democrats.”

Is that bluster, or is Hastert on to something? We’re only going to find out if the Ethics Committee has the power to investigate, under rules that don’t permit either party to stand in its way.

The question to the Speaker is then, if there is illegal activity or just unethical on the Democratic side, why don’t you pursue it? Am I to understand that Speaker is ignoring such behavior? And why? Because of a stupid truce that may have benefited Members of Congress, but done nothing for the public interest?

Velvet Revolver and 5 other nights of music that sucks out loud

ArchPundit April 22, 2005 1 Comment

Rich O pretty much nails it though Cheap Trick is pretty decent and is unfortunately sharing the night of dreckmeisters REO Speedwagon.

I wonder if pontificating about music is wise for one who has to run for office….

You don’t just plug in your clock when you want to know what time it is

ArchPundit April 22, 2005 1 Comment

Rick Santorum delivers up another gem in introducing legislation to stop the National Weather Service from providing weather information–get this–for free to those on the net. How dare they?

The pressure is coming from private companies that provide such information. The point made in the title is from one of the systerms’s administrators who points out if you want to have the Weather Service predict dangerous weather, they also have to predict the weather when it’s not so dangerous.

So the practical effect of the bill would keep taxpayers from accessing the information even though the Weather Service would still be generating it.

No one asked if you could FOIA it.

Via Austin Mayor

Sweet’s “Blog”

ArchPundit April 22, 2005 No Comments

I can only hope she doesn’t get one because between her and Miller doing the national and the state, there wouldn’t be much left (Eric Zorn isn’t only obsessed with politics…so it isn’t quite the same).

Seriously, I’d love to read a blog by her–my sense is the things she has to leave out due to space currently would be better than her columns now. It would be a great move for the Sun-Times.

Another point of the column should be taken by bloggers to–how hard it is to do regular reporting. While being a watchdog for the media is one of the best things blogs do, I often get the sense that the difficulty of the job isn’t fully understood.

Twangfest 9

ArchPundit April 22, 2005 3 Comments

A little St. Louis Publicity. The last night is incredible, so of course, I’ll be in Fort Collins. Go figure. I will be making the other nights and if anyone is looking for a series of good shows, this is it.

Tickets for Twangfest 9 go on sale on April 22 at the locations noted
below.?

You can get tickets for all four nights and all three venues of
Twangfest and avoid service charges by becoming a Friend of Twangfest.
Check it out here: http://www.twangfest.com/tickets.html

Wednesday, June 8

The Schlafly Tap Room
No Advance Tickets
$8.00

10:30 The Meat Purveyors
09:30 Jon Dee Graham
08:30 Milton Mapes

Thursday, June 9

The Duck Room at Blueberry Hill
Advance tickets at Blueberry Hill Box Office (no service charge) or
through Metrotix online at www.metrotix.com and by phone at 800-293-5949.
$18.00

10:00 The Supersuckers “Big Show”
09:00 Richmond Fontaine
08:00 Rough Shop

Friday, June 10

The Duck Room at Blueberry Hill
Advance tickets at Blueberry Hill Box Office (no service charge) or
through Metrotix online at www.metrotix.com and by phone at 800-293-5949.
$18.00

11:30 Big Sandy and His Fly Rite Boys
10:00 Moot Davis and the Cool Deal featuring Pete Anderson
09:00 Nora O’Connor
08:00 Matt Grimm and The Red Smear

Saturday, June 11

The Pageant
All tickets carry a transaction fee. Tickets are discounted if
purchased at The Pageant Box Office with cash only. Tickets are also
available online at www.ticketmaster.com or by phone at your local
Ticketmaster Charge-by-Phone number.
$20.00

11:30 Neko Case
10:00 The Bottle Rockets
09:00 Brent Best (of Slobberbone)
08:00 The Townsmen

As always, more information at:
www.twangfest.com
http://www.twangfest.com/schedule.html
http://www.twangfest.com/tickets.html

Democratic Caucus Vice Chair Race

ArchPundit April 22, 2005 No Comments

Jan Schakowsky is in a race for the number 4 spot on the House Dems side in DC. Here’s what I’ve gathered on the race. Joe Crowley from NY-7 is the primary opponent and according to the The Hill’s article is close with 32 public supporters compared to 38 supporters for Schakowsky on the day before publication. He released a few more names and probably is just in the lead right now, though no one is reporting it so I can’t give you a hard count. John Larson, CT-1 , is the other guy in the race, but hasn’t released names and may well pull out. Where his supporters will go is important to the outcome.

The key liability for Crowley appears to be his support for the bankruptcy bill.

Schakowsky, as I’ve discussed before, has strained relations with some in the Illinois Party, but is relatively popular in DC amongst Democrats. She’s raised a ton of cash for DCCC and is close to Pelosi.

I know there was some hope she’d take over DCCC back when Matsui was in charge, but Rahm’s high profile and aggressiveness was the more natural fit from what I understand.

My sense, and it isn’t infallible, is that DC Democrats are looking for aggressiveness and in terms of policy issues that are up for discussion, she probably fits better in the caucus right now. On the flip side, Crowley has some help in having a larger NY Dem delegation.

I Can’t Say

ArchPundit April 22, 2005 No Comments

Aaron Chambers wrote a hysterical column about Doug Scott’s inability to make a case for himself with voters because whenever he went to Springfield, and Chambers asked him about what was going on, Scott would say,

“I can’t say”

When Chambers and Sarah Roberts wrote an article for today and asked Scott about job opportunities, Scott said:
“can’t really talk about”

Old habits die hard.

Today’s via the Capitol Fax.

Ralph Says What the Rest of Us Think

ArchPundit April 20, 2005 1 Comment

When it comes to ‘religious’ imagery