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The media keeps talking to the guy who wrote Is She Really Going Out With Him…
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No Different Than Roland Burris
So sayeth the base about Mark Kirk and his reality based vote for cap and trade.
With Mark Kirk being one of the eight Republican U.S. House members to give Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi the votes they needed to pass the huge tax-increasing Cap and Trade energy bill last Friday night, most say Kirk is no different than the incumbent Roland Burris, and that without base support, Kirk’s a no-go for U.S. Senate.
Okay, Kirk’s done. As one IR commenter noted, though, talk is cheap. The Republicans need a candidate in 2010 that can beat Burris, Alexi Giannoulias or any other Democrat. We’ve been through this candidate-searching trauma before, need we be reminded? For all the criticism of the IL GOP’s State Central Committee, things were tough in 2004 after Jack Ryan dropped out. Dr. Sauerberg’s campaign to take on Dick Durbin never got off the ground in 2008.
Purity of Essence Bitches.
Talking to Adults
Not to minimize the gross dereliction of duty, but at least when Sanford got up there he talked to the public like adults and did not try to make excuses or try and hide behind his family.
Imagine Rod Blagojevich like that.
LOL–neither can I.
Been Busy
Hiking the Appalachian Trail
Back in the morning
Are We Worthy?
Hysterical Sneed bit from when I was gone:
It’s Chris
The Kennedy beat…
Begorrah! The Merchandise Mart’s Chris Kennedy may not yet have “officially” announced his bid for the U.S. Senate in Illinois — but his cousin, Ted Kennedy Jr., did the “unofficial deed.”
* To wit: “I was told not to talk politics tonight, but…you here in Illinois can have your own Sen. Kennedy — my cousin, Chris, is running,” Ted Kennedy Jr. said at an Access Living dinner at Navy Pier Tuesday night.
* Backshot: U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy’s son made the statement while accepting an award on behalf of his ailing father.
* Slipshot: Chris Kennedy, vice chairman of the event, kept quiet. Gov. Quinn, who told Sneed recently that Chris Kennedy was one of his heroes, was also there. And so was first lady Maggie Daley.
- The upshot: The event raised more than $600,000.
We could have our own Kennedy! What lucky duckies we are!
Oddly, the Sun-Times pulled that though and replaced it with:
June 4, 2009
BY MICHAEL SNEED Sun-Times Columnist
Begorrah! The Merchandise Mart’s Chris Kennedy may not yet have “officially” announced his bid for the U.S. Senate in Illinois — but his cousin, Ted Kennedy Jr., did the “unofficial deed.”
The Blago beat . . .
I’m sure an honest editorial decision.
Chris Kennedy Has Friends
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6QmgoHsnXw&feature=channel_page[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPKwGhKvqgc&feature=channel_page[/youtube]
Other than his name is Kennedy there is no justification for his run for US Senate. While DC goes all aflutter for Kennedy’s its hard to say why a Kennedy would be a good Senator or candidate even from Illinois. His background is largely in taxpayer subsidized busines which in itself isn’t bad, but he’s shown a propensity in Cleveland to use the taxpayers as his personal piggybank.
The notion that he can come in and be above the fray is idiotic given he’s a symbol of insider deals. The Kennedy sense of entitlement just makes it worse.
On the Precipice of Disaster
It’s ugly and it’s going to hurt the public
“This is really a complex question, but the wrong answer could be disastrous, and the wrong answer is really major cuts,” said Ralph Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a Chicago-based bipartisan think tank that studies the Illinois state budget. “If Illinois were to primarily balance its budget by cutting spending, i.e. cutting jobs, our recession would be significantly worse.”
“For regular public expenditures – things like education, health care, human services – for every dollar the state spends, you get a multiplier of $1.36 rippling through the local economy,” Martire said. “Even better are infrastructure projects, which get a $1.59 multiplier. And maintaining state spending is a significantly higher multiplier than any kind of tax relief.”
At the end of May, faced with an estimated $12 billion budget shortfall and unable to agree on a tax hike to increase state revenue, state lawmakers approved a budget that spends only the money Illinois has coming in over the next year. That means Gov. Pat Quinn will get only about half the money he’s requested for state agencies.
If the governor signs the budget, he’ll have to decide whether he treats it as a six-month budget, keeps most services intact and calls lawmakers back to Springfield around Christmas to figure out where to get the money for the second half. Or, since there’s no guarantee lawmakers will be more likely to compromise in December, Quinn could treat it as a full-year budget and start layoffs soon after the budget year begins July 1.
Rich continues a good list of consequences
It’s not a game. Where there better budgetary decisions that could have been made decades ago that could have alleviated some of this? Yes and so what?
We are dealing with what will be draconian cuts in public safety and social services. People use those all over the state and the only way out of the mess is raising taxes. Screaming about budget cuts is fine—and obviously in this situation cuts need to be made, but real live people are behind these decisions and no one wants to cut off programs like drug treatment and care for those with disabilities mental or physical.
In the category of where the hell do you live:
“I think they should lay off all the state troopers. I think they’re a total waste of taxpayer money,” Tobin said. “We have too many cops and state police have proven time and time again they’re glorified Keystone Kops. We won’t miss them one bit.”
Tobin is a moron. In more rural counties, the State Police are an essential part of the mix. It might seem wasteful if you live in Chicago or the surrounding area or even in the mid sized cities in Central Illinois, but if you go South of Springfield or those rural areas north, the State Police provide vital public safety and they are far more professionalized than county Sheriffs and small town departments. With the challenges in rural Illinois, crime is fact of life and they are the front line to deal with it.
CPS Instituting Assessment Tools at the Principal Level *UPDATED*
“You’re given the freedom, but you can’t make those decisions based on hunches,” Huberman explained at an editorial board meeting at the Sun-Times before the principals’ meeting Tuesday. “You have to make them based on the analytical framework we’re providing.”
Huberman emphasized that the assessments, now in development, are not “tests” that students will be graded on, but a way to find out what students need. He said he wants to create a “data-driven culture,” so the schools can know “how every student is doing, how is every teacher doing, and how is every school doing, with the goal of constantly improving.”
The assessments will be taken by students online to allow for quick results. Huberman plans a large technology investment for the coming school year.
The assessments would not be like the big annual tests of student progress, like the ISATs, and would be short — 30 minutes to an hour. Some assessments would be universal and given quarterly. Others would be geared to specific curricula, recognizing that schools teach math or science in different ways.
I’m generally for this sort of innovation, but the real question is are the principals going to have the time and training to use the assessments effectively. Too often, pressured principals under current NCLB regulations use these tools to beat faculty over the head leading to faculty viewing them as penalties and not tools to assess students’ abilities. Changing that sort of usage and ensuring principals can effectively use the tools is a huge challenge of leadership. It’ll be quite a test for Huberman.
Update: Catalyst has more on the initiative which does include data analysist being available to crunch the numbers. A very good sign.
Professionalism
Sangamon County State’s Attorney John Schmidt has been incredible in not making a public spectacle of his perjury investigation of Roland Burris. Sometimes we just complain about the bad, but the good deserve credit as well.
On Another Bond Note
Metra is whining that he forced them to accept credit cards.
Metra customers will be able to buy their monthly passes or ten-ride tickets online and pay with a credit card starting in September, Metra officials announced today.
Customers will be able to use credit cards at stations with ticket agents and at machines at 14 Metra Electric stations starting in February of next year.
The move to credit cards came after state Sen. Michael Bond (D-Grayslake) introduced legislation in March that would require Metra to start accepting plastic.
The move comes at a high price for Metra — the cost of operating the system and transaction fees is expected to be $3 million to $5 million a year, assuming a 75 percent participation rate, along with $2.2 million in up-front capital costs for Metra to accept credit cards online and install credit card machines and other equipment. Metra had resisted credit cards in the past because of the cost.
“I assume the state legislature didn’t look at what the costs might be,” noted Metra Board member Michael K. Smith.
People don’t carry cash much anymore and yes there are fees, but that should be a part of the overall fee structure. Metra could certainly give a small discount to those not using credit/debit cards (or petition for the right to do so), but whining that your agency has to enter the 21st Century almost 10 years late is one of many reasons why people get annoyed with mass transit agencies.