One Man's Thoughts

Sort of reminded me of the episodes of MASH when they would Bug Out...

Game changer.

Because you know we didn't have enough chaos and confusion in Illinois politics and government

Didn't walk a 4th of July parade, hung out with my folks and the family I their summer place.

Was rather nice.

Still no budget and the Trib is reporting that people who give money to U of I try and wield and sometimes do wield influence. Still looking forward to hearing if anyone from the Trib ever dropped a dime to make something happen at U of I.

Also a bit confused about the whole Palin thing, Governor people resign to become cabinet members, ambassadors or hold different elected offices. They just don't quit so they can go around the country giving speeches. Sorry.

OneMan

Well here is his website.

Overall I was kind of impressed. I was looking to see if he came across as creditable and he did. He answered some policy questions with answers with more detail than you would expect someone to use at this point in the game.


I am going to try and listen to everyone running before I make up my mind but he did a decent stump speech and answered questions for over an hour. The crowd was a combination of Ron Paul fans and libertarians to some degree so not all of the questions where the ones you would hear at a rotary javascript:void(0)club. He handled the questions well and came across as generally creditable, kind of what he really needs to do with groups at this point. At one point the questioning got a little back and forth (on drug policy) and he was able to deal with that as well.

Got the impression he is going to start doing some radio ads soon.

For their technology adoption.

Just heard from a buddy that Bob Shillerstrom has just shy of 3,000 on-line viewers of his announcement today live and over 1,000 downloads the first hour.

A really good first step. Looking forward to the others stepping their game up.

Tech and the net is not just a place for Democrats to hang out and take advantage of.

OneMan

That the same people who scream about the sanctity of life seem to hesitant to have government help people with health and disability issues.

OneMan

It isn't that I don't want government to take care of people....

I just want someone to explain how we have a 14 times what the lottery pumps into the budget every year budget deficit.

or

Using the Illinois Bluebook Budget pdf page 202 in FY 2007 the 'All funds' total was 54.2 billion dollars 23% of that came from income taxes or 12,240,000,000

So how in the heck did we end up with a budget deficit almost equal to what the state took in income taxes for 2007?

I want someone to explain that to me.

Also before I have to start reaching deeper into my paycheck to cover state government, I want to know what the cuts are first.

OneMan

And it is about a 5 ~ 6 Billion tax increase, where is the rest going to come from?

From a NY TV Station

After talks of a power-sharing arrangement broke down, Democrats locked themselves in the Senate chamber, Republicans tried to conduct business on their own and none of the "people's business" got done

Murphy is in for governor.

Well you can call what the governor is doing with the current budget situation, but I can say one thing for sure.

People do seem to be scared, really scared.

The last protest at the Thompson Center seemed to have more people who have a paycheck that would be impacted by cuts. This protest seemed to have more people who were going to be impacted by services cut. The disabled, elderly, kids were there is some numbers. Also I noticed several domestic violence organizations/agencies this time around and they were delivering a strong message, perhaps I have a bias on that one because of my size or something the idea of being physically violent to someone smaller and weaker is wrong at it's most basic level.

I think these folks are going to be your strongest advocates to reach out to those who voted against the tax hike.

It's easy for suburban mom or dad to see a story like they had in the Beacon yesterday about funding being cut to a organization that helps people file for benefits with the state. A lot of folks don't ever see themselves or someone they know needing that sort of help.

A domestic violence shelter however is something everyone can see not only a need for but likely knows someone who has had to deal with that issue directly.

The number of people protesting who you felt had never protested anything before in their life was much higher too.

OneMan

This is one of the pictures I took, it was a violence prevention group. I suspect it made the news tonight.