College Democrats -- a new network for Illinois student Dems

I've been helping start a small political committee called the Fund for Campus Democratic Party Organizing.

The idea is that Illinois is one of the bluest states in the nation. There are fantastic stories to tell about the progressive laws and policies coming out of our state government, and it's easy to get inspired about the good that government can do by seeing what a state government is doing.

Especially when it's easy for progressives to get depressed by what the federal government has been doing (enriching the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us and spending our commonwealth on the occupation of Iraq, not on our human capital), it's important to tell the story of state and local government here.

On a related note, college Democrats in Illinois should have the chance to visit Springfield on a regular basis and meet the very approachable legislators that are implementing the progressive agenda every year.

That's one of the main hopes of the Fund for Campus Democratic Party Organizing.

So, if you are a college Democrat (or close enough to either category), sign up for our email list here. Or just email me at dan@djw.info with your ideas and thoughts about how to better connect college and university Democrats with the state government (and each other).

Illinois Campus Democrats: Join Our Email List

Things are worse in Iraq than we can see

This article on how bad things are in Iraq was so compelling that I had to copy the whole thing.

The link is here. Chilling.

'NYT' War Reporter: 'Anarchy' Curtails Reporting in Iraq
The New York Times
Dexter Filkins

By David S. Hirschman

Published: September 15, 2006/ Editor & Publisher

NEW YORK Journalists are in danger everywhere in Iraq these days, making it
nearly impossible to report, and it only seems to be getting worse, said New
York Times reporter Dexter Filkins, speaking Thursday at the offices of the
Committee to Protect Journalists in Manhattan. Filkins, who will begin a
Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University this month and start work on a book,
said that 98% of Iraq, and even most of Baghdad, has now become "off-limits"
for Western journalists.

Filkins, one of the longest-lasting and most-honored reporters in Iraq, said
that many situations lately have become even too dangerous for Iraqi
reporters to report on. He described the current climate as "anarchy," and,
when asked if the country was already involved in a civil war, he said,
"Yeah, sure."

Asked what advice he had for a reporter from a small paper going to Iraq now
without the kinds of money and backup that the Times was able to afford him
(or previous reporting experience in Iraq), Filkins replied: "Don't go."

The most that Times reporters can do these days, said Filkins, is "very
carefully set up an appointment with someone" using back channels and meet
with them under tight security. "We can't go to car bombings anymore," he
said, describing how even getting out of a vehicle to report would expose a
Western journalist to mob attacks and kidnapping.

As a result, the paper increasingly relies on its 70 Iraqi staffers to go
out into the streets and do the actual reporting. These Iraqi journalists,
both Sunni and Shiite, do "everything" according to Filkins, and are paid
handsomely (by local standards) for their efforts. But they live in constant
fear of their association with the newspaper being exposed, which could cost
them their lives.

"Most of the Iraqis who work for us don't even tell their families that they
work for us," said Filkins. "It's terribly terribly dangerous for them."

He estimated that there are probably 50 murders and 20 to 30 kidnappings in
Baghdad every day, and said that it had gotten to the point where it was no
longer just Sunni-Shiite clashes or insurgent mayhem. "Nobody trusts anybody
anymore," he said. "There's no law, and the worst people with guns are in
charge."

According to Filkins, the New York Times is burning through money "like jet
fuel" simply to securely maintain its operations in the country. In addition
to the 70 local reporters and translators, the Times employs 45 full-time
Kalashnikov-toting security guards to patrol its two blast-wall-enclosed
houses -- and oversee belt-fed machine-guns on the roofs of the buildings.
The paper also has three armored cars, and pays a hefty premium each month
to insure the five Times reporters working there.

American journalists, he said, spend their days piecing together scraps of
information from the Iraqi reporters to construct a picture, albeit
incomplete, of what life is like these days in the war-torn country. But he
says that the work is slow and difficult, and it is hard in such an
atmosphere for reporters to nail down specifics. "Five people doing a
run-of-the-mill story takes forever," he said.

Most troubling was Filkins' assessment that the U.S. military may not know
much more than the Times does about what life is like on the ground in Iraq.
Soldiers barely leave their bases and they don't interact very much with
average Iraqis, he said, so it is hard to say who, if anyone, has an
accurate picture of the current situation.

"Everyone is kind of groping around in the dark," he said.

Answer to Daley's veto of big-box ordinance is statewide big-box law

Mayor Daley vetoed the income-raising big box ordinance yesterday, that would have forced the out-of-state owners of some of the most profitable corporations in the world to pay more than poverty-level wages to their employees in Chicago.

His main objection to the ordinance is that it would have disadvantaged potential city stores versus suburban stores (who would not fall under the terms of the ordinance, and thus could pay their employees the state minimum wage of $6.50 without any benefits). It's a fair point. I still think he should have signed the ordinance into law, as I believe the benefits from higher wages and benefits to Chicago residents would have outweighed the costs of any big box stores that did not open in Chicago. Who knows whether the big box behemoths, that have clearly articulated their express desire to penetrate the urban market (the last frontier for the big boxes who have reached points of market saturation in the exurbs and in most rural markets), would have shouldered the higher operating cost of paying non-poverty wages in Chicago, or whether they would have followed through with the threats to ignore Chicago altogether?

It's worth pointing out that the problem is not that the ordinance to require non-poverty wages and benefits is a bad idea, it's that the ordinance wasn't broad enough.

It only covered Chicago.

The response seems clear: a statewide big box ordinance.

With a statewide ordinance, the border question doesn't afflict the Howard Avenue or Cicero Avenue. It only affects the state border.

Would the big boxes ignore a 12,000,000 person market? I doubt it.

Would the cost of paying non-poverty wages be a big enough burden to write off 12,000,000 people? I don't think so.

There would be similar border dynamics around the ring of the state, but for most of the 12,000,000 potential customers who, according to industry standards that I learned about in Crain's will not travel more than 3-5 miles for retail, there isn't a border question.

Every county board should start passing similar big box ordinances, starting with Cook. And Lake County, Indiana, should do the same thing.

When wages are down (and they are -- average wages are falling) and the number of people without health insurance jumped by 1.1 million last year, we can't wait for the federal government to solve these problems. Cities, counties and states must continue to show leadership on raising the purchasing power of people to make everyone better off. Chicago's big box ordinance is a very innovative, envelope-pushing remedy to the problems of falling wages in our increasingly service-based economy.

To his credit, Illinois Lt. Governor Pat Quinn has been pushing the idea of a statewide big box ordinance. And I have a correction to make as well: I wrote about the $7.50 an hour minimum wage advisory referendum on the Cook County ballot and assumed that the Cook County Board voted to put the question on the ballot. I was wrong: citizens did submit petitions to place the question on the ballot. And the Master of Referenda -- Lt. Governor Quinn -- was behind the effort. Congratulations to him and his political team for a smart move.

Cook County asks 5 million residents whether to raise the minimum wage to $7.50

I haven't seen this reported elsewhere (I first heard about it from the Blagojevich campaign), and I think it's very smart politics: the Cook County Board has placed an advisory referendum on the November ballot asking voters if they want to raise the minimum wage from $6.50 to $7.50 an hour.

One of the Democrats' signature issues in 2002 and in the 2003 General Assembly was raising the minimum wage past the federal minimum of $5.15 (that's $10,300.00 annual pre-tax income, and if that's not a poverty-wage, I'm not sure what is) to $6.50 an hour. It has been a triumph for the state and I'm sure has resulted in a large influx of wealth into our state as the extra $2,000 in purchasing power that mininum wage workers enjoy has been multiplied throughout our economy, not to mention the upward pressure on wages it has brought to hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Upward pressure on wages -- what a concept!

It's especially appropriate after Labor Day weekend (and thank you to labor unions for giving me the power to have the day off on Monday -- what a concept it must have been 80 years ago to demand a day off from work to honor labor!) the unending need to shift power to low-income workers both because it's the right thing to do and because it's good for our economy.

I've heard enough about the 'job-killing' minimum wage and I don't buy it. There isn't evidence to support the argument. And if opponents of a decent minimum wage are serious, then they should be for lowering the minimum wage to, say, $1 an hour. Or we can match the Chinese and go to $1 per day. That's the logic. If you oppose raising the minimum wage because it somehow impoverishes the working poor, then you are for lowering the minimum wage, because *that's* really going to bring jobs to those that need them!

It's funny: those who think that paying poor people less will mean they get more money also think that cutting taxes will mean the goverment will get more money too. I wonder if those people apply the concept to their own lives and tell their bosses that they don't want a raise, because they want to make more money. Oh wait: they probably are the bosses.....

I think this is exclusively a practical question. At some point (probably at the lowest 20% of income -- just shy of $10/hour, around the poverty level), there will be fewer jobs created. But there's a lot of wiggle room before that point, and the benefits that come to Illinois workers (and thus, the Illinois economy from all that new income, often paid by out-of-state owners of publicly-traded corporations) outweigh the costs of the relatively few lost jobs.

I don't know what other premise anyone could accept besides a ruthlessly pragmatic assessment to determine their support or opposition to a minimum wage increase. If it's *ideological*, then please. That's empty. The only ideological position that makes any sense is to abolish the minimum wage (and thus, to be for Chinese wages of $1 per day). What's the logical reason to oppose a $7.50 minimum wage and reluctantly support a $5.15 minimum wage? If it's a border question (gas stations and hot dog shops are all going to move to Indiana and Kentucky!) then it's really a pragmatic assessment: how many jobs will Illinois really lose to the poverty-wage states on our borders versus how much more income will flow to Illinois low-income workers?

Since we have no evidence that firmly supports either proposition (and if anyone's got some, I'd like to read it -- applied only that documents actual job losses, theoretical constructs don't count), there's no pragmatic reason to support the lower wage over the higher wage.

Anyway, I think it's a smart issue to draw attention to for the Blagojevich campaign and the Democratic Party, and if I were Judy Baar Topinka, I'd be promising to support a minimum wage increase to $7.50 sooner rather than later. Whoever figured out to ask the County Board to put this on the ballot should get a raise.

I hope Ned Lamont ends Joe Lieberman's career

Joe Lieberman has been such a destructive force for the Democratic Party (in my lefty view). I've sent my twenty bucks over to Ned Lamont's campaign and have been making a few phone calls into Connecticut on his behalf as well.

Guess the Joe-mentum ran out of gas......

And the best part about the Lieberman campaign? Neither Barack Obama nor Dick Durbin went to Connecticut to campaign for him! Lots of Dem senators did (Boxer jumps to mind), but I like to think our guys were smart enough to put the need for a muscular, smart Democratic face above their personal friendship with the smarmy, moralizing, holier-than-thou incumbent. Senator Lieberman may be a nice guy, but his politics of rolling over for the Bush Administration on the invasion of Iraq symbolized D.C. squishiness. As Obama said at his kickoff event a few years ago, "Democrats get to Washington and they somehow lose their backbone!" That's why Lieberman has been bad for Democrats, and if he loses tomorrow, expect to see a lot more backbone in DC.

Representative McKeon bows out after a decade

I'm a little late to this party, but I'd like to wish Representative Larry McKeon a happy and active retirement. He is a fellow blogger (check it out here), and his posts somehow capture part of his personality. For example, the headline on his post announcing his retirement is "Well, I made a decision"

Not: "McKeon to Retire". Just, "Well, I made a decision". Something endearing about that.

It's one reason I like the General Assembly so much. It's a very human place.

By the way, be sure to go to the State Fair for either Governor's Day on the 16th of August or Republican Day on the 17th (depending on your party). It's a vivid reminder of how nicely accessible our state leaders are. No matter how powerful the elected official, when they are wearing a short sleeve shirt and sweating in the sun next to the cow made of butter, it's a nice egalitarian aura.

Big Business strikes back against Senator Collins' law on Sudan divestment

Senator Jacqueline Collins has championed a law (SB 23, here) that requires all public pensions to divest from any investments in Sudan. Technically, it prohibits the Treasurer from depositing any funds or contracting with any financial institution that does business in Sudan. Sudan is one of the saddest places in the world, where a genocidal campaign is waging.

To try to stop the horror, the State of Illinois is trying to avoid profiting from the misery of others. The state law requires all public pension funds to get a certification from private equity firms that they are not investing in Sudan (until the genocide ends). This has caused some administrative problems for investors and private companies, as they can no longer profit in the Sudan and today they fought back.

In federal district court in Chicago, they have sued the State, claiming that the state law is not permitted by the federal Constitution, because it resembles foreign policy and that's implicitly prohibited. (I don't recall that debate in Philadelphia....)

Keep in mind, no American companies are permitted to invest in Sudan, pursuant to a federal law passed in 2002. So only non-American companies are impacted by the Illinois law. And these non-American companies are getting together to use the resources of our country (the federal judiciary) to ensure that our pension funds can finance their operations in Sudan.

The main plaintiff in the case is the National Foreign Trade Council (www.nftc.org), a big money organization out of D.C. that always seems to be advocating for lower wages and higher profits (funny how that works out). They managed to recruit eight Illinois pension funds to join the case.

Senator Collins released a statement arguing that state pension funds have no standing to sue the state, and that divestment is not foreign policy -- it's just disassociation with a genocidal country. Governor Blagojevich defended the law as well. This bill, by the way, was co-sponsored by Peter Roskam and Ed Petka and passed out of the Senate unanimously. It also earned 89 votes in the House and was supported by both Governor Blagojevich and Treasurer Topinka. But where there's money to be made.....

Here's an article from the federal government. (Yes, that's our government press at work. But, a good article nonetheless).

I hope those conservative judicial activists don't infringe on the authority of Illinois to decide where and with whom to invest our billions in pension funds. I really can't imagine the Founding Fathers, each of whom believed passionately in states' rights, would have taken the view that a state could not direct their own funds away from a particular foreign nation. Part of me hopes this case goes to the Supreme Court, as I'd find the debate interested, particularly to see what Justice Scalia, Mr. Original Intent, would say.

Anyway, it seems a little sad that a bipartisan initiative that will likely help end an ongoing genocide is the subject of a lawsuit because profits are apparently more important that helping to stop a genocide.

Chicago takes the lead on creating a better economy

Alderman Joe Moore and 34 of his colleagues on the Chicago City Council took a big step towards creating a middle class today by passing the big-box ordinance requiring the most profitable retail companies in the world to pay their workers a living wage.

It's important to remember the context: the federal government has dramatically shifted wealth to the wealthiest Americans and largely impoverished the rest of us, both by increasing the real tax burden on working people (counting state and local taxes, as well as tuition and fees that must rise due to a lack of federal resources to states and cities) and by ensuring wages do not rise by (a) making it harder to form unions and (b) not raising the minimum wage.

And don't forget some of the other big policies that make most of us poorer: eliminating trade barriers and outsourcing jobs to put massive downward pressure on wages. Why are manufacturing jobs disappearing? Because the federal government approved trade agreements where American manufacturers compete with workers who are paid less than a dollar per day.

That's why the Chicago City Council's move, backed by SEIU's vivid and muscular threat to challenge legislators who vote with big business instead of with workers, is so important.

The best retort I've heard to the argument that retailers will avoid Chicago because they just can't afford to buy health insurance for the workers is Eric Zorn's column in the Trib yesterday. Corporate America isn't afraid that their arguments about killing jobs will be proven right... they are petrified that the urban market with billions in purchasing power will lure retailers into the city anyway, and the retailers will pay a living wage, and they will still be enormously profitable!

Because then, the rest of the country will start following progressive cities like Chicago and raise the minimum wage.

Why not all of Cook County?

We should pass a county ordinance raising wages. That would be a boon for the Cook County economy, because you can't outsource retail! And the increase in income for Cook County workers will get spent in Cook County, not sucked up into the profits and distributed throughout the world to the shareholders.

Today makes me proud and happy to live in the Capital of Blue America where elected officials show that government raises our standard of living.

Biodiesel mandate for all public agencies in effect -- is your local government in compliance?

A few weeks ago, HB 112 (Feigenholtz, Cullerton) kicked in, requiring all diesel powered vehicles owned or operated by the State, any county or unit of local government, any school district, any community college or public college or university, or any mass transit agency when refueling at a bulk central fueling facility, to use a blend containing 2 percent biodiesel fuel.

This is a very good thing for the Illinois economy.

Here's where you come in, courtesy of the Illinois League of Conservation Voters. Check with all of the local governments that represent you: city, county, township, community college or mass transit agency. Ask to speak to the person in charge of procurement. Ask them if they are aware of the new state requirement to purchase 2% biodiesel, effective July 1st. And ask them if they are doing so.

Biodiesel is usually cheaper than petroleum-based diesel. It burns cleaner and it is made in Illinois (or at least the Midwest) and not some other country.

Lots of laws aren't followed because citizens don't spend any time to follow up and enforce the law.

Let's not let this law lay unused.

The meaning of freedom while celebrating Independence Day

This Sunday, I'll be on Bruce DuMont's Beyond the Beltway radio show and the topic is the meaning of freedom.

I found this graduation speech by Geoffrey Stone for the University of Chicago Law School and thought I would share it.

His main point is:

Throughout American history, the most intense pressure for the sacrifice of liberty has come in time of war. This is only natural, for in wartime the national security is directly threatened. In such circumstances, it is inevitable that grave questions will arise about whether we can afford our freedoms. The challenge is to decide how much sacrifice of freedom is warranted.

One of the lessons of history is that in time of war we not only compromise our liberties, but we do so excessively and to a degree we almost always come to regret. As Justice Robert Jackson once observed, "it is easy, by giving way to the passion, intolerance, and suspicions of wartime to reduce our liberties to a shadow, often in answer to exaggerated claims of security." If we are to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, we must understand why this happens.

----

It's worth reading, as he speaks to the meaning of freedom -- and the role of clear-eyed citizens to defend our freedoms against the reflexive suppression of dissent to policies of an invading President --eloquently and concisely.