Posts tagged ‘legislation’

How I lost my health insurance at the hairstylist’s

by , posted on Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 at 10:35 pm

So you’re chugging along doing all the things you do as a responsible citizen, you work, and pay your bills and your taxes, you are there for your children, and fighting for your marriage, you even volunteer. It’s spring, 1998, and gradually you just become so tired it’s a struggle merely to climb a flight of stairs.

Oh, well, you do have two daughters in college, another nearing the end of her senior year in high school, a son in middle school, a full-time job, a house to take care of, are back in college, and have two dogs, two cats, and oodles and oodles of marital strain.

Fatigue sort of goes with the territory, and like many working moms, you just push past it. You get up, you get the family off in various directions, you go to work, you go to class, you cook dinner, you help with homework, go to games and track meets, do housework, set boundaries for the two kids at home and field frequent counseling-like calls from the two who are not, you try to work through problems with your husband, and you collapse exhausted into bed, get up the next day, and do it all over again – it’s a routine you dare not interrupt with reflections on your fatigue – there is no time.

Then one day…

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Fight for a Fair Budget – Final Hours of the Fiscal Year

by , posted on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 11:57 am

Candle Light Vigil, Thompson Center, Chicago, June 29, 2009. From across Chicago and Illinois, hundreds gather to mark the names and programs that will be cut out of the new budget in the final hours before the end of the fiscal year. This will eliminate vital community programs and devastate thousands of families.

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Bill Foster and the Gambling Mystery UPDATED

by , posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 8:52 pm

While n0madic has been pondering the mystery of whether or not Foster will be running again in 2010, Foster has been busy brewing a mystery for me to ponder.

Foster has signed on as a co-sponsor of Barney Frank’s internet gambling bill.

I don’t claim to be very familiar with this issue, but I can’t help but be aware that at least two large employers in IL-14, the casinos in Elgin and Aurora, are potentially threatened by the legalization of internet gambling.

So, yes, all other potential ethical questions related to gambling addictions, etc, aside, I’m more than a little surprised that Foster would sign on as a co-sponsor.

I asked for a statement regarding his co-sponsorship, and Shannon O’Brien, his spokesperson, has replied tonight by e-mail with this:

No, we have not made a public statement on this subject.
Best,
Shannon

So the mystery of why it seems like a good idea to Foster to put jobs in IL-14 in possible peril in these tough economic times abides.

UPDATE: 2,332 jobs to be exact

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Fight for a Fair Budget – Chicago, Springfield, Aurora

by , posted on Monday, June 29th, 2009 at 9:34 pm

Chicago, June 18, 2009. Thousands responded to the “Doomsday Budget” which would deeply cut social service organization’s funding by the millions and devastate families by the thousands throughout the State.

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Denny’s Double Dealing: Hastert and the Gaming Industry. Part 3 of 3

by , posted on Saturday, November 4th, 2006 at 9:05 am

Originally posted at Fireside 14 and Daily Kos.

AMERICAN VALUES

When Republicans first began pushing internet gambling prohibition about ten years ago, it was a fairly straightforward proposition. As the titles of the legislation would indicate — Computer Gambling Prevention Act of 1996, Internet Gambling Prohibition Act of 1997 — these were anti-gambling measures, no doubt about it. And the National Gambling Impact Study Commission report recommendations regarding internet gambling, released in June 1999, called for prohibition “without allowing new exemptions or the expansion of existing federal exemptions to other jurisdictions.”

But there was a problem with this approach. The bills never made it to the floor for a vote. Too many Members had gaming interests in their districts that would be harmed by the legislation. So, in order to sweeten the deal, loopholes began to show up in these bills. So many loopholes, in fact, that House Resources Committee Chairman Don Young wrote to Hastert to complain.

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Denny’s Double Dealing: Hastert and the Gaming Industry. Part 2 of 3

by , posted on Friday, November 3rd, 2006 at 6:58 pm

Originally posted at Fireside 14 and Daily Kos.

BETTING ON THE COME

Tough talk by the current crop of Republicans about the evils of gambling didn’t begin in response to the emergence of Indian casinos, or even with the arrival of internet gambling. The more principled of the social conservatives in the party had been profoundly opposed to gambling all along. When Pat Buchanan won the Republican primary in Louisiana in 1996, he did so while running on an anti-gambling platform. Later that year, a leading congressional opponent of gambling, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), saw his National Gambling Impact Study Commission Act signed into law. Indeed, it was the release of that commission’s report in June 1999 that proved to be the tipping point in the relations between the Republican Party and the gaming industry. Interestingly enough, however, the anti-gambling legislation that was proposed in the wake of that report didn’t make things worse between the two of them; it ended up bringing them closer together.

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Denny’s Double Dealing: Hastert and the Gaming Industry. Part 1 of 3

by , posted on Thursday, November 2nd, 2006 at 10:15 pm

Originally posted at Fireside 14 and Daily Kos.

Lost in the media frenzy surrounding the breaking news of the Mark Foley scandal was the story that internet gambling prohibition, a piece of the so-called “American Values Agenda” that Dennis Hastert and the House Republicans have been promoting this election season, had been signed into law that same day. Along with the bills included in their “suburban agenda” (you remember, that’s the one where they stressed their commitment to protecting kids from internet predators) the measures incorporated into the American Values Agenda were designed to rally the Republican base by billboarding the party’s allegiance to conservative values. Regarding the internet gambling legislation in particular, Hastert said, “It seeks to protect our children from gambling sites at home, keep our hard-earned money in the bank, and put the criminals that seek to take advantage of our family earnings in jail.” But if, by chance, any of that rhetoric gave you the impression that Dennis Hastert was seriously concerned about such things, or that he was in any fundamental way an opponent of the gaming industry, I’ve got a tip for you. Don’t bet on it.

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