The Washington Post reports now that a Silver Spring, Maryland public relations firm has taken the US Supreme Court's decision in the 'Citizens United' case; the one that extends it's previous precedent that corporations are 'persons' to the political and constitutional realms, to it's logical extreme. Murray Hill is running for congress from the 8th congressional district of Maryland. Murray Hill, Inc., that is.
After the Supreme Court declared that corporations have the same rights as individuals when it comes to funding political campaigns, the self-described progressive firm took what it considers the next logical step: declaring for office.
"Until now, corporate interests had to rely on campaign contributions and influence-peddling to achieve their goals in Washington," the candidate, who was unavailable for an interview, said in a statement. "But thanks to an enlightened Supreme Court, now we can eliminate the middle-man and run for office ourselves."
(Kucinich is a rara avis - there is no "out doing him". Yeah, Luis is angling. He knows how, both at the top and with his voters. imho. - promoted by wegerje)
I support the house passing the Senate Bill. It would sure be lovely if the 43 Senators who support passing a public option through reconciliation would morph into 51. Of course the now problematic House needs to pass reconciliation language and if it doesn't have public option language then the Senate support is moot. Mind I'm not saying I would support opposition to a House reconciliation bill without public option. I'm just saying if I had my druthers...
So along comes this cute stunt by Alan Grayson of a four page bill that would amend Medicare to allow anyone who doesn't qualify now to buy it as health-care insurance for themselves (and family?) Too easy, too simple and too obvious for passage? Yeah most likely.
The Texas teachers’ pension fund recently paid Chicago to receive a stream of payments from the money going into the city’s parking meters in the coming years. The deal gave Chicago an upfront payment that it could use to help balance its budget. Alas, Chicago did not have enough money to contribute to its own pension fund, which has been stung by real estate deals that fizzled when the city lost out in the bidding for the 2016 Olympics.
if that deal works out fo the Texas teachers that's fantastic, but the fact that they had to find something so exotic to give them a little payoff is pretty startling, and there aren't going to be many of these days to go around.
And it's also yet another example of an Olympics bid damaging a city's economy. Just imagine how bad things would be if they'd won!
Make of it what you will. As for my reading of ClusterStock, what can I say? I guess my dirty little secret is out.
According to Talking Points Memo, Dan Lipinski (3rd) and Jerry Costello (12th) may be among the 12 votes Bart Stupak claims to have ready to sink health care reform (such as it is) unless his attempts to bar women from using their own money to buy insurance that would cover abortions is part of the final deal.
Over at Daily Kos, RenaRF and deaniac83 have details on action plans. If you live in their districts, please let 'em know what you think:
There's a lot of nostalgia about the coal industry in Illinois but the coal companies don't hesitate to embrace change. One change they enjoy is that reopened mines are no longer union, despite all the blood spilled to organize the industry.
But more than that, the industry is quick to reduce the size of their workforce by mechanizing operations. The amount of coal mined in the United States steadily increased over the past twenty years, even while the number of coal mining jobs dropped dramatically.
Rio Tinto is connecting its Australian mines to satellite links so workers more than 800 miles away can remotely drive drilling rigs, load cargo and even use robots to place explosives to blast away rock and earth.
The company's Perth operations center, which relies on banks of high-tech equipment to manage one of the oldest and dirtiest jobs around, is a harbinger of new techniques that are allowing miners to go to more remote places, dig deeper and get ore to the market more quickly. It also aims to save Rio Tinto money by using fewer workers and keeping them out of harm's way.
Imagine that? Illinois could keep spending millions of dollars subsidizing the coal industry and there's no guarantee that one day most mining jobs won't be inside Peabody headquarters in St. Louis. Or, Murray Co could do it from Ohio. There are already less than 4,000 people employed in Illinois coal mining and even new mines won't hire many workers.
If someone asked me which Illinois newspaper is most hopelessly in the tank for the coal industry I'd think of the Southern Illinoisan or the Belleville News-Democrat. So I have to give the Southern Illinoisan credit for covering Jeff Biggers' book reading in Carbondale.
On the environment, Biggers said clean coal is a marketing tool that was created in the late 1800s to sell coal. He expressed disappointment that President Barack Obama is on board with clean coal. "We have been market-ing clean coal for over a century, and that offends me," Biggers said.
And I'm impressed that they printed this line that contradicts so much industry propaganda normally found in downstate newspapers.
He said the job issue is a myth because coal mining is a "boom and bust" industry and that it reached its peak in 1918. Biggers said instead of more coal mines, there could be jobs in other forms of energy such as wind. He said even if the wind turbines do not go up in Southern Illinois, they can be made here.
That's an important point since the state has spent millions promoting the myth of clean coal and the coal industry wants us to spend more on subsidies and rate increases. They're promising to revive the Illinois coal mining industry but thanks to more efficient mechanized methods, most of the old jobs won't come back anyway.
Taxpayer dollars funded a "cost estimate" recently completed to build support for the carbon capture and gassification plant proposed in Taylorville. I'm sure environmental groups and others will respond to it soon. I'm skeptical after looking at their claims of CO2 reductions. The report doesn't acknowledge the possibility that the plant will displace evening wind production and new central Illinois wind farms.
It's rare to hear anyone contradict the coal industry in downstate Illinois so Jeff Biggers is a refreshing necessity.
Companion bills to restore the Illinois primary to the third Tuesday in March, i.e., somewhere between March 15 and March 21 depending on the calendar, rather than the first Tuesday in February, have advanced in both the Illinois House and Senate. Sen. Deanna Demuzio's SB 355 passed the Senate unanimously on Feb. 25 and Rep. Elaine Nekritz's HB 4964 cleared the ethics and reform committee on a 9-0 vote and is calendered for third reading after short debate. Each bill also contains text adjusting back to February the time after which a legislator may not publish a newsletter, i.e., state-funded printing and mailing that obviously helps an incumbent.
The news accounts linked to above indicate that at least some legislators would prefer a primary even later than March, and that Demuzio would be "open" to it. Would have been nice if the bills were crafted that way.
Under the pending legislation, the 2012 primary would be held on Tuesday, March 20, three days after a Saturday St. Patrick's Day. While Feb. 2 was a rotten date, I have no nostalgia for mid-March either; that still puts the big petition drive, filing, and any ballot challenge between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and means that there are mounds of frozen slush to clamber over for most of the door-to-door and goin'-to-meetin' season.
David Orr, who has to fund any overtime incurred during the filing/challenge season, has argued that there are higher costs associated with a winter primary (March 15-21 is still winter) and suggested May, June, or August. Sen. John Jones was quoted as saying all of his county clerks agree. The IVI-IPO supports a May or June primary; I've long felt mid-to-late May makes the most sense. You lose folks after Memorial Day and as schools start to let out. Pat Quinn last year suggested a primary as late as September, as seen in some other states.
The primary date is not an issue that stirs most souls but, like gerrymandering, it is one of those many small things that adds up to big advantages for the existing power structure, which is stacked against the average citizen. Perhaps some brave rep will introduce a floor amendment, before this bill becomes law, changing the date to the third Tuesday in May. We could at least get on record who does or does not support that.
You may only see another or two in your lifetime. That's pretty grim I know, but that's my current sense. With all the scientific evidence amassing for the reality of climate change, that's the feeling that seeps through to me.
I called last summer the summer from heaven it was so nice. I have been calling this winter and the previous one typical. Typical winters or normal winters for Chicago. But really I think this and the previous were/are extremely cold and snowy winters for Chicago. The new extreme, one that is about to be replaced by a warmer extreme the next time.
If you were around for the really cold snowy winters of the late seventies then you think this as being a typical winter. You think of the winters of five and ten years ago as warm. The winters of the seventies got down well below -20 degrees Fahrenheit. That's what I am talking about. And that was before real feel numbers. Those were actual degrees.
With the retreat of the Glaciers and especially with the retreat of the arctic year round ice pack and the retreat of the arctic permafrost so has there been a retreat of really cold winters from Chicago.
See the reason that this winter has been so extremely cold (the current extreme) is because of an el Nino in the Pacific and because of an extended solar minimum for sunspot activity. Oh it's likely a lot more complicated than that. But the trend is likely real as well.
Me, I am bracing for a tipping point in the next five to ten years. I'm fearing a roaring back of what regular folks understand as global warming. The stuff that a majority have been propagandized into no longer believing in. They see global warming as meaning really hot summers. But really it's not so much extreme daytime highs but rather more not so cold winters and warmer nights. Averages that slip under the radar of human minds that evolved to spot obvious anomalies in patterns. Boiling water spills on skin rather than the slowly rising temperature of the cooking pot.
But in the next five to ten years the pot could quickly tip from an almost boil to a roiling boil. I worry about the huge methane stores trapped beneath disappearing permafrost. Methane stores that are as greenhouse gaseous as carbon dioxide. I worry about the next sunspot activity maximum that when combined with the reality of the steady march of rising CO2 in the atmosphere could disrupt satellite transmissions as well as make a snow-less Chicago winter. Likely several in a row.
Until finally there comes the next new extremely cold Chicago winter where the total winter snow fall goes above twenty inches and on one really cold day the mercury drops to an extremely cold ten degrees. Ten degrees above zero.
Oh likely I have the science wrong and sometimes I worry too much. But that's the writing I see on the wall.
