I understand decorating for Christmas it's a season. But Halloween come on people it's 3 hours.

OneMan

Just checked the state board of elections site, it appears that Sen. Holmes has not filed yet.

Yeah I figure she does not have a primary challenge but still...

OneMan

Now that's a football play

Wow the Trib shares some love on the Gov...

He shows no inclination to resign from office. And while the state constitution does allow for his impeachment by the Illinois House and trial by the Senate, it's doubtful legislators could bring themselves to such drastic action. So the realistic question becomes this: Given the multiple ineptitudes of Rod Blagojevich -- his reckless financial stewardship, his dictatorial antics, his penchant for creating political enemies -- should citizens create a new way to terminate a chief executive who won't, or can't, do his job?

Wow....

Well Senator Craig if you argue that the foot tap was protected speech, then doesn't that mean that you were in fact trying to communicate something?

Also does free speech give you the right then to stick your hand in someone else stall and flip them off, how about open the door and say howdy?

Seriously dude, let it go.....

OneMan

Sneedlings . . .
Today's birthdays: Ang Lee, 53; Dwight Yoakam, 51; "Weird Al" Yankovic, 48; Ryan Reynolds, 31; Pele, 67; Gary Deeb, 62; Chi Chi Rodriguez, 72, and Michael Crichton, 65

Hey Mike what about

OneMan 38

You're just like every other armchair quarterback out there. You're afraid to play so you sit back and make fun of the players. The truth is - you have no idea what to do to pay for roads, schools pensions, firemen, policemen, hospitals, bridges, sewers, clean water.

Well I have suggested at least one tax plan here and in the past I have commented that if the Governor feels his stuff is that important he should then have the courage to try and increase the income tax.

I have also commented in the past I would be in favor of a income tax increase if it was tied to some sort of property tax option. That is all districts get a realistic amount to educate each student (so kids in poor districts have a shot at a good education, there would some conditions on this money such as limits on teacher pay, administrator pay and how much of the state money could go for X or Y) then you could have local property taxes approved by local voters to increase that funding.

So everyone gets a Chevy for an education and if people want to raise their own taxes so their kids get a Buick for an education that is their right.

The point I am trying to make is instead of asking for 'hard' tax increases, increases that make people think and cause government to be a responsible user of money instead of these TOP type taxes that impact other folks. That's what most of these tax increases are, the type of increases that people think 'Hey that doesn't apply to me'

So he needs to cowboy up and say, we need to increase income taxes and here is why and why it is important or not try to do all of this program expansion. It's as simple as that, pension tricks and more debt can only get you so far.

It's easy to say lets do X and Y, it's even easier to tell people they will get X and Y and it isn't going to cost them a dime, that's not leadership that's BS.

OneMan

I think I have a solution for the tax issues facing both the State of Illinois, Cook County and the City of Chicago...

OneMan's TOP tax plan

Tax Other People

A simple plan where we tax things that OneMan doesn't really use or care about much.

-- A 10% Light Beer Tax. Ugh, light beer. I never drink it so they might as well tax it some more.

-- A 20% cigarette tax increase. Don't smoke so it doesn't bother me.

-- A 10 cent toll add on for drivers who smoke and have been in any border state within the last 12 hours. I suspect you are buying smokes out of state, can't prove it but I might as well get some money out of you all the same.

-- Out of State non I-PASS using drivers now pay triple tolls! Good luck getting to O'Hare family from Iowa.

-- A double tax on lottery winnings, lets hit that cash cow up for some more milk.

-- A 5% royalty on anything that uses the word Lincoln. He wasn't born here but dag nabit, we are the Land of Lincoln so we might as well try and make some money off of it.

-- A 10% tax surcharge in Chicago for all places that are deemed 'Night Clubs'.

-- A 5% additional tax on motorcycle sales, Mrs. OneMan would never let me get one so what the heck.

-- Double real estate tax on any condo where the ads for it try to make the place sound 'trendy' and/or filled with the type of people who wouldn't talk to you in High School.

-- A $2 state PFC for anyone who flies into Illinois, hey they are breathing our air and they might be from out of state, gotta tax that.

-- A $1 shoe disposal tax. Much like cars pay fuel taxes to help improve roads, we have people walking on sidewalks and wearing them down and not paying a dime. It's time to stop the fat cats and their Gucci Loafer wearing lobbyists from taking advantage of the working man in this state.

-- A 100% tax on jeans that cost more than $50 if you can afford to pay that much for jeans you obviously have money to give to the state. Guess that means you to Governor Blagojevich.


Do you have some suggestions.

More to Come

OneMan

Mark my words if our defining concept for the 2008 presidential election is "Our Guy Isn't Hillary" we are screwed.

OneMan

Foster picked up another statewide dem endorsement and there were some interesting responses from the others in his race.

Stein, a Geneva attorney, called Foster a multi-millionaire like Republican candidate Jim Oberweis and said it's no surprise that politicians would seek to curry favor with him

I thought that Democrats were no longer hostile to wealth, oh well.

Serra, of Geneva, said he doubted the endorsements would factor into voters’ decisions.“I don’t think the voters are paying attention,” he said. “People don’t pay attention to the primary.”

Good luck with that campaign strategy poindexter.

OneMan

So I had my 20 year high school reunion on Saturday.

Neither two of the most famous classmates this blogger nor the NBC 5 Sportscaster were at the event. Useless trivia our graduation speakers were picked by audition Ryan and I tied for second in the first round and then had a speak off (he won and his speech was much better than mine).

It was interesting, at my wife's reunion the week before it seems the women had aged more than the men at my reunion it was the other way around. The women all looked really good the men look like they had aged more.

One old classmate teaches high school history now, so I offered up my political connections if she ever needed some for classroom stuff, doubt if she will take me up on it. She was a smart woman when we were in school and I suspect she makes her students think and a thinking voter is never a bad thing.

Overall it was fun, too expensive (we paid $62 a head for a cash bar and bar pizza and food that seems like it came from GFS) but fun. Most of the folks there obviously felt good about where they are in life and there is a lot to be said for that. I was also surprised how many of them still see each other regularly I swap e-mails with a couple of folks once in a while but haven't seen any of these folks by any cause besides chance in the last 4 years, in the last 10 I could count the classmates I have seen on one hand. More a function of distance and time than anything else. Lots of folks moved away from the Dolton area, however they mostly ended up in NW Indiana (St. Johns ) or the Tinley, Mokena area.

OneMan

With some of the stuff coming out about our governor I wanted to re-run the ad to remind everyone who the real bad guy is again.

Remember kids, one of the purposes of protests is in part of make people feel uncomfortable, to inconvenience people. To do this within legal means is what protesting is about.

Even if you disagree with them.


OneMan

To the Rudy Clai fan, I care how someone writes to a blog when it is my blog. Suffice to say I would be willing to bet just about anything it is not C. Lauzen who is making comments on my blog written with u instead of you and with a bunch of !!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Also seriously, it's you not u.

OneMan

So which rhyme in Stronger came first

Since prince was on Apollonia

or

Since OJ had Isotoners

Oh, the challenge of being a songwriter, what the heck rhymes with Isotener, loner, homer?? Apollonia!

OneMan

So if no-one ends up with a majority out of Super Tuesday does Al Gore enter the race? If someone does not end up with enough delegates to win at the convention does Al Gore ride his bike in and save the day?

Unlikely but an entertaining thought all the same.

OneMan

Just a reminder the Kane County Republican Roundup is tomorrow at the fairgrounds.

I will be there with the camera phone (for a while at least)

OneMan

As the gang at OpenLine is reporting. Rick Lawerence is about to introduce a Parental Notification Law for Aurora.

Wow, now things get even more interesting. More to come including some thoughts about the impact of this on some local races.

OneMan

To my Rudy Clai fan who is posting comments.

Just pick a name or go with anonymous, don't post multiple comments in rapid succession with different names.

Suffice to say I think it is safe to say the real C Lauzen would not end a comment with !!!!!!!!!! he would also likely use full words and not u as short for you.

That being said, please feel free to comment.


OneMan

The Jim Oberweis TV Ad

Hiram has some thoughts about how the Lauzen reported number $525,000 (with a loan of 325,000 to his campaign) makes Foster look good because of Foster's larger number of donors. Also because Lauzen would have had a larger base to call upon for donations. I think he hit it right on the head.

When everyone reports to the FEC, that is going to time for some interesting stats work.

OneMan

Saw this at my local Borders.... they also had Obama and McCain. Interesting marketing idea, don't know how many you would sell. Nothing like having a calendar that reminds you how many days it has been since your candidate got their dreams crushed on Super Tuesday.

Hey Kris, just a thought....

Took OneSon to go walk with the APPO today before the city con. meeting. Stuck around as long as a 6 year old would let me for the meeting (over 2.5 hours so he deserves some props for that).

OneMan

Again props to the mystery team at the OpenLine blog for their coverage of the clinic stuff. Between the videos and the source documents on the issue they are an excellent source of information (keep in mind they do link to both sides of the issue on the side bar).

I think it is safe to say the motivation of the OpenLine is as much pointing out how the city has screwed this up (like so many other things).

You know where I fall on this thing but regardless I think we need to take a hard look at this process in the future because all of the parties involved (including Planned Parenthood) deserved better. Because if when all is said and done that a special use permit is required, I would expect PP to take Aurora to court for their costs and understandably so.

OneMan

Well we were at Mrs. OneMan's 20Th High School reunion last night. It was an OK time, as OK time as one could expect when you know two people at an event. It will be interesting to see what mine is like (next weekend), my high school was about double the size of hers and mine was much more ethnically and economically diverse.

Not surprisingly a large number of the graduates work for the state (Mrs. OneMan grew up just south of Springfield) so if you were at a high school reunion on Lake Springfield on Saturday odds are you saw the OneMans...

Suffice to say OneMan feels better about the state of his hair and Mrs. OneMan has aged better than all of her classmates (then again I have bias).

OneMan

So they had to end the contract of the spouse of one of Madigans top aids because..

"The administration insists the firing wasn't political but was forced by a change in federal job qualifications for the federally funded position."

Why do I suspect if her husband worked for Emil they would have made it work. Seriously how does waving a red flag in front of Madigan help?

OneMan

Come join the APPO enjoying some first admendment rights on Tuesday... You might even get to see OneMan...


OneMan

Well Foster announced his numbers.

I have to say, nice Job to Bill and his team. It looks like the fill the beaker thing worked out well (enough of my more democratic blog buds linked to the thing....). The number of 'scientists' who gave is interesting. Also by getting his number out early unless the others on the democratic side raise close to it, they are going to look pale. Also the way the number, not Bill's contribution to it led the story was nice. I am looking forward to the Republican candidates being addressed the same way.

I also think Bill established the 'credibility number' of 400K. A GOP candidate can argue 'well Jim is putting his own money into the race' all day long but no matter what when this is done one of them will be running against a democrat and they are going to have to match his fundraising (or be able to) or there is going to be an issue.

Someone in the Herald story argues that Foster may have to toss $2 million of his own money at the race. Wow, regardless the fact that he could changes everything on the GOP side. Yes, I have argued that money alone does not buy victory and it doesn't. However it's better to have it than not.

Face it kids, Bill Foster has changed this race on both sides.

OneMan

More questions kids, is the relationship between Linda Holmes and the PP related PAC going to be an issue for her in Aurora?

The question I don't have an answer for is would a pro-choice suburban woman (but one who does not consider choice her primary issue) think the actions by PP were no big deal or consider them enough of an issue (assuming it is framed right) to make the money that Linda got from them an issue?

Also since it looks like it is going to take decent money to defend the seat does Emil consider the defence a good investment.

OneMan

What prompts someone to roll down their window to yell at another driver? I have never gotten that one.

OneMan