Started looking at D-2 filing from Friends of Blagojevich. So I can't guarnatee that these will not change.

A few interesting entries

United Airlines Inc
P.O. Box 66100
Chicago, IL 60666
12/16/2005 $1,000.00 $1,000.00

Nothing like taking some cash from the local bankrupt airline.


Now these right now show up as three seperate entries all for the same day all for the same ammount. All three from the same zip code and two from the same PO box. Were these three seperate donaitons or just one donation recorded three times?


WellCare Health Plans Inc.
P.O. Box 25886
Tampa, FL 336225886
11/21/2005 $20,000.00 $20,000.00

WCG Health Management Inc.
P.O. Box 25866
Tampa, FL 336225886
11/21/2005 $20,000.00 $20,000.00

The Well Care Management Group Inc.
P.O. Box 25886
Tampa, FL 336225886
11/21/2005 $20,000.00 $20,000.00

From the Trib

Facing lawsuits from fired prison officials who say Gov. Rod Blagojevich broke his pledge to keep good employees, lawyers for the state offered a surprising defense: His promises were "classic political puffery."

Ok it is a proud moment for any leader when attorneys take what you say and refer to it as "classic political puffery".

One follow up question then. Were Gov. Blagojevich's comments about his testicular virility' "classic political puffery"?

OneMan

So was Keno just a red herring?

OneMan

From ABC 7 and other sources

January 23, 2006 - Suggesting he isn't married to bringing keno to Illinois, Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Monday sharply challenged state Republican lawmakers to propose something better to fund school upgrades he envisions under his $3.2 billion capital plan.

I have a suggestion governor. How about if we can't afford to cover the bonds out of general revenue how about we just don't issue the bonds. Let's not spend money we don't have.

OneMan

So AFSCME is not going to offer an endorsement for the Democratic Gov. Primary. I don't think an official AFSCME endorsement would have led to any more AFSCME members voting for him anyway since he is not really popular with state employees anyway.

I think this might actually help Blagojevich in the general election. He can show that he is in fact no friend of government and government employees and he is being careful with state funds. He can rail against bureaucrats and the like and talk about how he has shrunk government.

There are some real risks to this approach, for example if some of the stuff AFSCME points out in their report (read it by the way) on prisons leads to some sort of major prison disturbance that leads to loss of life. Then the staff cuts the governor seems so proud of can come back to haunt him.

Then again I might be wrong.
OneMan

From the state of the state address(pdf)

If you're a factory worker or an engineer, a medical technician or a customer service representative, a software designer or a stock analyst, you can walk into work one morning and find out that you've been replaced by someone in another part of the world.
Their trade policies have resulted in nearly one million American jobs being sent to other countries.

That may be acceptable policy in Washington. But it's not in Illinois. They send jobs to India. We brought OfficeMax to Naperville. They send jobs to China. We helped Chrysler expand in Belvidere. They send jobs to Indonesia. We brought Pella Windows to Macomb.

Sorry it isn't trade policy that is sending these jobs overseas (engineer, a medical technician or a customer service representative, a software designer or a stock analyst) it's improved communications technology and education around the world. I am still waiting for someone to propose anything remotely logical with trade policy that would keep knowledge work in the United States.

Yeah great we attracted jobs to Illinois by offering people deals. Basing economic development off of government deals instead of making the state an attractive place for business is a dangerous game. Do we really want economic development in this state to be based off of how big of a check we will write to a company?

It like the difference between a significant other who likes you because you drive a nice car vs. one who likes you for who you are.

Also nice use of OfficeMax as an example, nothing like referencing a retailer that is closing 110 stores.

OneMan

I am thinking of enrolling my kids in Mandarin language lessons.

I have offically become yuppie scum, if the 17 year old version of me was around I would want to hit me and I don't think I would blame him.

I figure the ability for the kids to speak Mandarin might come in handy for the day the become Bond Villians.

OneMan

Scene from the future.

The Illinois Historical Society 2040 two researchers are looking at some old books.

Researcher A) what's this
Researcher B) Oh that is thesaurus used by Governor Blagojevich's press office
Researcher A) Wow, this one page is really dogged eared and wrinkled. Looks like it got used a lot
Researcher B) What word is at the top of that page
Researcher A) Coincidence

OneMan

Hey Dr. K you might want to take the site down now....

Here is what I think might be an interesting question (or two) about Keno.

Would a city have the right to stop Keno from being offered by lottery locations within the city? I suspect they would be able to prevent liquor licence holders from offering it but how about just the corner gas station?

OneMan

Has anyone given thought to how much Keno is going to drain away from Daily game and little Lotto revenues?

Don't try to tell me it will not have an impact. Why wait around all day to see if your number hit when you can wait about 10 minutes?

OneMan

So we want to add Keno to the lottery...

"It's kind of like bingo that we play in churches all throughout the state," Blagojevich said at an appearance in Decatur.

Based off a study done by a Professor at U of I that in Montana 37% of Keno revenue comes from problem and pathological gamblers. Just like at church.

In Mass. in FY 2001-2002 Keno generated $640 million in sales and $141 million in net revenue. That works out to about a 22% return so in order for the state to get $80 million in net revenue the state would have to have about a million dollars a day 365 days a year spent on Keno. 365 Million * .22 (return) = 80.3 Million.

The busiest casino in the state (Elgin) did about 33 Million in Adjusted gross receipts in November. In FY 2004 total lottery sales in Illinois were $1.7 Billion. So this proposal to meet it's numbers would require an over 20% overall boost in revenues for the lottery.

Also for what it is worth Keno is a bad actual bet (see #1). For some of the math behind Keno follow the link. To learn how someone cheated a NJ casino at Keno go here.

Well the governor is going to be nice and give $1,000,000 of our money to a church that burned down to help them rebuild their school as well as $1,000 of his own money..

I have some real misgivings about this for a bunch of reasons. I am a Christian and in fact my church is expanding it's school and I would love to have the state give a million dollars to it. I can understand how the state can give grants for non-religious text books and materials and the like for a school, however I can't see how you can give money to build or re-build a church school building and de-couple that from religious education. I also realize that the tax write off I get for money I give to my church's school amounts in some ways to a subsidy.

I also am in general not a big fan of government money going to religious organizations because with government money comes government rules. I am not a fan of big government and government support of religion is the classic example in my mind of big government.

I have a few questions

A) Is every church that catches fire now going to be the recipient of government funds? We had a fire in church in North Aurora, when can they expect a check?

B) Did the church actually ask for the money?

C) As Grand Old Partisan points out on the ILLINOIZE blog, does this mean the governor is now a fan of vouchers?

D) Is the 1K going to be from Citizens for Blagojevich or from Citizen Blagojevich?

E) One of the items on the fire said the church had a few hundred members/worshipers. So lets assume 500 at $2,000 a worshiper we now know what any church in the future should expect.

Then again my suspicion is that he realizes full and well that this will never pass muster but it will give him the chance to say 'I tired' and also gripe about the ACLU.

OneMan

Still trying to get back up to speed after my visit to Disney but did run across this in the Trib

Looks like we donated the vaccine we bought last year but have not and will not pay for to Pakistan. Sounds like a nice idea and everything, but I think it also forces us to pay for it now since we can't really return it.

SPRINGFIELD -- More than a year after federal regulators blocked Gov. Rod Blagojevich from bringing 250,000 doses of unapproved flu vaccine from Europe to Illinois, the governor has found someone abroad who can use them: victims of the recent earthquake in South Asia.
The donation of $2.5 million worth of vaccine arrived in Pakistan recently, aides to the governor said. Blagojevich sent the vaccine to the ravaged country in response to a request from Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, administration officials said.

Ummm, are we not trying to dispute actually paying for this stuff in the first place, now we are donating it. That takes chutzpah. The trib points out the wholesaler filed a claim against the state.

Also the Trib has these two other little tidbits.

State health officials tried in August to donate the doses for use in South Africa, but the vaccine was not approved for importation by that country because the expiration date printed on the packages had passed.

So we are donating expired vaccine?

Read the whole story, it also provides a way for the governor to make Danny Hines look a little bad as well.

OneMan

I was out of town visiting a large mouse (and some family) down in Florida.

OneMan + OneMouse = No Money.

Actually I will be blogging about my Disney adventures. It's been a while since I had been there and it seems like the maintenance has gone down hill.

OneMan