by Downtowner, posted on Wednesday, June 9th, 2010 at 6:00 am
Don’t you just hate unsubstantiated rumors on the Internet? I know I do.
But you know what I hate even more? When you’ve been hearing the same unsubstantiated rumor in the real world for months on end from several “insiders” who should know (or should know better), when you are told flat-out by elected officials (not to be quoted, to be sure), that the rumors in question are “an open secret,” when you are even aware of newspaper columnists who have been hinting around the periphery of the story for quite some time and suspect strongly that they can not go on record because none of their sources will, and then you are told that the culmination of the series of rumors is “imminent.”
I’ve come to the conclusion that this is how unsubstantiated rumors on the Internet get started: By people like me who are sick of all the dithering around from individuals who either have the dirt and are so afraid of the powers-that-be that they refuse to go public, or are bound by some journalistic standard, or are just not able to name a source themselves, due to the excellent record of the powers-that-be in question for doing nothing that is strictly illegal, or for that matter written down. Which none of this really is.
Well, screw all that, here’s the rumor.
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Tags: Cathy Hurlbut, ethics, Illinois, Kane County, Kane County Board, Karen McConnaughay, Ken Shepro, Mike Kenyon, Phil Bus, Republicans
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by n0madic, posted on Saturday, May 8th, 2010 at 6:00 am
In Red to Blue: Congressman Chris Van Hollen and Grassroots Politics
, author Sanford Gottlieb tells the story of Chris Van Hollen’s successful grassroots campaign for Congress in 2002, and the lessons Van Hollen, and others, took away from that campaign in subsequent election cycles.
Van Hollen’s district
is MD-08, located in Washington DC’s Maryland suburbs. In the primary he beat frontrunner Mark Shriver, a Kennedy cousin with a lot of money to spend and a consultant by the name of David Axelrod on his team. He then went on to unseat longtime incumbent Connie Morella in the general election that fall. Morella was a well-liked, liberal Republican who had been long thought to be unbeatable, having enjoyed more than a little bit of support from local Democrats through the years on election day. And Van Hollen pulled this off in a Republican year. This was the first congressional election to be held after 9/11. The Republicans won back control of the Senate in 2002 and added to their majority in the House. Only two Democrats unseated incumbent Republicans that year. Chris Van Hollen was one of them.
Van Hollen has brought this experience to bear in his subsequent work at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). And he was not the only one to go to school on that 2002 campaign. As Gottlieb puts it:
David Axelrod told Van Hollen in 2008 that he had learned some lessons from being on the other side of the 2002 primary. It was a really good grassroots campaign, Axelrod said, with the passion on Van Hollen’s side. Van Hollen carried the lessons learned in 2002 into the successful effort to build a House Democratic majority in 2006. Axelrod and David Plouffe may have applied those lessons in the 2008 50-state race for the White House. (Gottlieb, Red to Blue, 32)
Last week Van Hollen appeared with Gottlieb at a book event in Washington, DC and talked about his attempt to apply those lessons learned to his work with the DCCC. Van Hollen’s introductory remarks, plus the question and answer session that followed, are presented below.
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Tags: 2002 elections, 2006 elections, 2008 elections, 2010 elections, Bill Foster, Bill Owens, Chris Van Hollen, Citizens United, climate change, Connie Morella, David Axelrod, DCCC, Democrats, grassroots, IL-14, James Hansen, Johanna Berkson, legislation, Mark Shriver, Maryland, MD-08, ME-SEN, Montgomery County, Murray Hill, NY-20, NY-23, PA-12, Republicans, Scott Murphy, Special election, strategy and tactics, Tom Allen, U. S. House, U. S. Senate, volunteers, Wall Street
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by dkenney, posted on Sunday, May 2nd, 2010 at 9:49 pm
Kendall and Kane counties have had their fights and won, and now it is DeKalb County who is in a battle to defend their land, water, and air from Waste Management Inc’s (WMI) attempt to expand the DeKalb county landfill. There are many sides to this attempted expansion that is the latest in the attempts of international corporations to push around small rural counties that are struggling in the present economic climate
The present landfill
that Waste Management is operating is 88 acres. It takes in about 100,000 tons of solid waste each year, 70,000 tons from DeKalb County and 10% from outside the county. The expansion would allow Waste Management to take in 2,000 tons per day or over 500,000 tons a year. They want to expand the landfill an additional 500 acres, turning prime farmland and several eco-systems into a ugly landfill. When completed there will be a mountain of garbage nearly a 100 feet high running for 2.5 miles along route I-88 just east of DeKalb. The garbage will be trucked in from 16 northeast Illinois counties. There will be a truck load coming in every five minutes.
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Tags: Cortland IL, DeKalb County, DeKalb County Board, dump, environment, garbage, Illinois, Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, landfill, pollution, Renee Cipriano, Stop the Mega-Dump Citizens' Group, Waste Management Inc
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by n0madic, posted on Wednesday, April 21st, 2010 at 10:02 pm
Catherina Wojtowicz sent me a message on Facebook today ..
Whoa! Harsh.
Obviously not a progressive. Wonder why I friended her? Wonder what I posted that set her off?
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Tags: Catherina Wojtowicz, Chicago IL, Chicago Tea Patriots, Dan Lipinski, Facebook, IL-03, Illinois, Keith Olbermann, Tea Party
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by John Laesch, posted on Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 at 7:19 pm
I stopped by the Montgomery Menard’s (I boycott anti-union Home Depot for their CEO’s effort to kill the Employee Free Choice Act) to pick up some drill bits last week and saw a picket in front of a Buona Beef that was going up in front of the Menard’s.
As I walked over to the
picket line, I found several Fox Valley labor leaders and friends holding signs in front of about 10 inflatable rats. When I asked what was going on, my friends informed me that the owner of Buona Beef was out for an inspection and they were sending a message.
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Tags: Batavia IL, Buona Beef, Carpenters Local 916, Do Not Patronize, Fox Valley, Fox Valley Citizens for Peace and Justice, Home Depot, Illinois, Kane County, labor, Laborers Local 149, Montgomery IL, Teamsters, unions
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