Posts tagged ‘IL-14’

“Mr. Hultgren, does this bother you when you see this?”

by , posted on Thursday, June 28th, 2012 at 7:01 am

“I have a job and I have health insurance,” Representative Hultgren (R IL-14) said, and then paused for a moment proudly emphasizing the Republican spin talking point that when one has a job, one automatically has health insurance. It’s as if life is that simple. If you work, the spin goes, you have insurance. He was attempting to say that if we have jobs, we don’t need a national health insurance plan. We don’t need “Obamacare.”

The subtle part of this ‘argument’ is that not only is it flawed logically, it blames the victim. If you don’t have insurance, it’s because you don’t have a job. A job will furnish good insurance. And if you don’t have a job, it’s because you’re either not looking, or—to serve the Republican spin even further—it’s because Obama won’t do what the Republicans want so people can have jobs. So therefore, we can all blame Obama.

But this time his audience at the Oswego Town Hall meeting was not buying it as I noticed they have in the past. No one applauded. No one said, “Yeah!” There was silence as Hultgren paused and looked around for support he did not get.

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Hultgren long on spin, wrong on facts, empty of solutions

by , posted on Thursday, June 28th, 2012 at 7:00 am

Representative Randy Hultgren (R IL-14) showed typical Republican spin at his Oswego Town Hall meeting recently. When asked direct questions regarding taxes, healthcare, social security, and Citizens United, he was long on spin, wrong on facts, and empty of solutions.

One frustrated attendant who tried to get a direct answer on healthcare, commented after the meeting that Hultgren “…seemed detached and unfeeling. His voice was just so syrupy and sweet he appeared unbelievable and unconcerned.”

His comments on Social Security were a surprise but shouldn’t have been, given the Republican Party’s relationship to corporate money and financial companies wanting to gamble with social security investment money.

“I’m not planning on Social Security,” Hultgren said. “Most people my age aren’t planning on Social Security.”

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2012 IL-14 campaign archive

by , posted on Monday, April 23rd, 2012 at 7:00 am

Democratic primary

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IL-14: Hultgren town hall meeting video, Yorkville, August 29, 2011

by , posted on Tuesday, August 30th, 2011 at 7:12 am

Originally posted at robynsward’s YouTube Channel.

To view in full screen mode, click on the little box with the four arrows in the lower right hand corner of the screen. To escape full screen mode, press your “Esc” button.

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Klinkhamer for which office?

by , posted on Friday, August 26th, 2011 at 12:02 pm

I kept hearing persistent rumors to the effect that former Bill Foster staffer Sue Klinkhamer would once again be running for Mayor in St Charles, a post she held for a term before going to work for the City of Chicago, and from there to a position as Bill Foster’s IL-14 District Director. So this morning I did some digging.

I couldn’t find anyone who would definitely confirm or deny the rumor that Klinkhamer is getting ready to run against current St Charles Mayor Don DeWitte – closest I got to it was an individual close to Sue who gave it as their opinion that it would be “a real step backwards” for Klinkhamer.

But what I did hear – and this from no less than four individuals so close to Klinkhamer that I have trouble disbelieving any of them, much less all four of them – is that she is by far more likely to run for Kane County Board Chair.

Meh. There is no reason she can’t do both – the Kane County Board Chair election is in 2012, and the next St Charles Mayoral election is in 2013. In fact Kevin Burns, current Mayor of Geneva, is hedging his bets in just this manner – running for County Board Chair in 2012, with his next Geneva mayoral election in 2013 in reserve if he loses.

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Keep the Focus on the Unemployment Crisis!

by , posted on Sunday, August 21st, 2011 at 1:35 pm

Last week I attended a town hall meeting (THM) with freshman Repesentative Randy Hultgren in Sandwich, and a second in Geneva.  The third THM is in Yorkville on Aug. 29.  See details at the end of this post.

Question after question, the crowd pushed for Jobs-Jobs-Jobs!  Many also called for a fair, progressive tax on the wealthiest of our society, the card-carrying members of the millionaire and billionaire clubs.  Others pushed more spcifically for H.R. 870, the Humphrey-Hawkins 21st Century Full Employment and Training Act, a bill that imposes a speculation tax of .25% on Wall Street trading.  The revenue would be used to create 2.5 to 10 million jobs.

Keep reading for press coverage, video of the THM’s, and details for the next THM. 

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SO Glad We’ve Solved Our Economic Crisis

by , posted on Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011 at 12:26 pm

Really, I can’t thank those Tea Partiers enough for making all the right moves to ensure that we continue to push the Great Recession well along the way toward becoming the Greatest Depression.

Today we’ve learned that in the wake of the Debt Ceiling Deal of Doom being signed, sealed and delivered, the stock market continues an alarming slide and the Chinese have downgraded our credit rating. A special shout out to Enabler in Chief Barack Obama, for his exquisitly choreographed moves in response to the Economic Terrorists in Congress. But I want to reserve my most special shout out of all for local Illinois Economic Terrorists Randy Hultgren and Joe Walsh, because it’s just not easy for two freshmen congresscritters-turned-economic-terrorists to accomplish so much in such a short time. Helluva Job!

Damn. I just used the “j” word didn’t I? Sorry, so sorry. Forgot. We are all supposed to be pretending that there is no problem with one in ten Americans being unemployed by obsessively focusing on a deficit that could be much better handled if we just worked on getting them jobs. Damn. Did it again didn’t I?

Well, will just have to hope that Congress is so busy right now that they failed to notice someone worried about jobs. I think it’s more likely than not.

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IL-14: Hultgren and Walsh just seem like the same guy

by , posted on Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011 at 5:21 pm

But they are not really. I can tell you that in person Hultgren is very pleasant and Walsh is downright scary.

Beyond that, though, politically they are pretty much…okay, you got me, the same guy. For instance, yesterday they both voted against the Deal O Doom that raised the debt ceiling limit today. Not that I mind their no votes, I just mind that they are representative of the short-sighted Tea Partying mentality that got us into this invent-a-crisis in the first place.

Why worry about what these two do? Well, I feel compelled to do so on a personal level, as I currently live in the new IL-14 (though I could cross the street to borrow a cup of sugar and be in another district, and drive five minutes in the other direction and be in a third) so I can look forward to one or the other of these Economic Terrorists being my congresscritter in the near future. Well, one of them already is, but the main point is they are both prominent Illinois Economic Terrorists, hell-bent on destroying the middle class, our country, and certainly my chances of ever getting health care in America.

And there is slim to no chance that anyone in this district will run against whichever of them ends up the Chosen Annointed Economic Terrorist in Chief of the IL-14 Tea Party and thus try to stop them from committing future acts of economic terrorism on my behalf.

It’s just depressing.

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IL-11: Foster’s Financials

by , posted on Monday, July 18th, 2011 at 7:30 am

I had a theory about why Bill Foster was running for Congress again, this time in the newly redistricted IL-11. It had to do with the fact that his terminal financial disclosure statement from his stint in IL-14 showed that he’s sold out of ETC (the company owned jointly with others, including his brother who ran the business) and his wealth at that time seemed to be locked up in a promissory note, in combination with the fact that his campaign essentially owed him a million dollars – i.e. he was a million in debt. To himself.

My theory was influenced as well by persistent rumors I heard at the time of Foster’s last campaign against Hultgren, that he was rather bored in Congress, would like to return to physics, etc, etc. Not rumors I had ever passed along as, so far as I could tell, they came from no one very close to him and seemed speculative at best. But I heard them frequently enough that I was surprised to hear he was interested enough in being in Congress to decide to run in IL-11. And then there is the lack of any staff as of his first new FEC filing of this campaign – not even a professional fundraiser.

So my theory was simple: Foster had decided to run to raise enough cash to pay himself back that million dollar loan to his campaign fund, and if he won, okay, but if he lost, well that would be okay too. Now I think that theory is simply wrong.
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Hultgren votes with the Dems

by , posted on Wednesday, February 9th, 2011 at 8:35 am

Here’s a thing I did not see coming from my new congresscritter: Randy Hultgren has voted, along with a handful of other new tea-partiers in the House, to block the extension of three controversial Patriot Act provisions. And they succeeded in doing just that.

The motivation is actually quite consistent with tea-party logic – they see it as an unecessary intrusion on personal liberty – but the thing liberals need to think about is this: When’s the last time we saw a crack in the Repub block that resulted in blocking legislation that the Repubs wanted and the Dems did not? When? Anybody? Anybody?

The incident has me pondering two things this morning:

1. Where else can liberals find common ground with these Freshmen?

2. What would have happened if Progressives in Congress had displayed a similar unwillingness to “play ball” when the game itself violated their core convictions?

I could drive myself crazy pondering that latter ephemeral question, but the crack in the Republican block just delivered a tangible result.

So let’s be practical: What else can we do with this interesting new crack in the world?

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