Carol Marin's predictions for 2005

Carol Marin has her column in the Sun-Times today on 2005 predictions with one very depressing spin.

She writes:

Forget New Year's resolutions. Let's make some predictions. It's riskier but much more fun to climb out on a great big limb and forecast tomorrow's news today.

Let's start with what will happen on the federal front:

OK, so you figure she'll make some predictins about Wall Street brokers trying to get a cut of Social Security, or whether the military will invade another Syria, or some other federal policy.

Nope.

The federal front means federal prosecution of allegedly corrupt Illinois officials, public and private.

Geez.

She also has a pretty stringent definition of how Barack Obama's honeymoon will end:

Because this state's newest senator and national rising star Barack Obama still has occasional mortal moments, sometime this year he will disappoint someone who supported him and they will say so.

I somehow think that has already happened. I'll even be the first -- I'm disappointed that the campaign didn't have a big public send-off rally in Chicago. There. I'm someone who supported him and he disappointed me a little bit. And I'm saying so. Guess the honeymoon is over! (ha ha)

I think the disappointment here in the Capital of Blue America is likely to come from the role that Obama and Durbin and our new 10-9 Illinois Democratic congressional majority will be playing in D.C.: defense. There won't really be many big initiatives that our Democratic electeds will be able to pass into law in the next two years, and that's a downer. Time, once again, to work with our state and local electeds to bring liberty and justice for all in Illinois.

Congressmen to challenge Ohio's certification of presidential vote -- senators shouldn't wuss out

Can you imagine how incompetent an election official must be to set up polling stations that result in eight hour lines?

Eight hours.

That's a full work day.

That's what happened in Ohio.

Where, again, the official in charge of elections (Kenneth Blackwell) is a partisan Bush supporter.

And I understand those eight-hour lines were all in Democratic precincts.

Republican voters didn't have to wait in line for eight hours.

Democratic voters did.

That's bull.

And some Members of Congress, led by John Conyers, ranking Democratic Member of the House Judiciary Committee, are challenging the certification of Ohio's electoral votes.

They need one Senator to join them in order the challenge to heard and debated by the Congress.

This site has the scoop.

Now I can just hear all the liberals rolling their establishment eyeballs and muttering something like "come come, DJW, don't be such a fringe element type of guy. Just let it go. Don't engage in conspiracy theories. If you ask a Senator to challenge the results -- when we know the GOP-majority will reject the challenge -- why, we'd *look bad* and we'd appear to be *sore losers*"

Can't you hear that?

And I say to that: give me a break.

Did the House Republicans in 1998 say "gee, if we impeach President Clinton, we'll look bad, and we know we don't have the votes in the Senate to convict him, so we'd best not raise a fuss." Hell no! They did what they believed in! It's about time we did the same.

We believe there is grounds for debate to challenge the Ohio results.

So let's debate it in Congress!

Object to the certification and start the debate!

Dick Durbin, step it up!

And can Barack Obama bring a challenge? I think he gets inaugurated on the 4th of January. If so, step it up! Let's have a debate!

The House Members need one Senator to bring a challenge.

Remember in Farenheit 9/11 (confession: haven't seen it; this is hearsay) the part when the House Members discussed how they needed one Senator to join them in challenging the certification of the Florida 2000 electoral votes -- you know, the ones where the press recount clearly showed that more people intended to vote for Gore than Bush?

That one?

And no Senator would join in the challenge.

Well, Dick Durbin and Barack Obama, step it up!

If the truthout.org site is correct and Congressman Conyers is going to continue his vigorous and necessary investigation into the Ohio irregularities -- read here to get familiar with them -- by objecting to the Ohio certification, then I expect a Democratic Senator from Blue America not to get scared of a Congressional debate on the Ohio election and how the establishment media might react by joining in the objection.

Joe Trippi on Chicago panel 1/16 on media, democracy with me

This is pretty cool.

A new group called Media Democracy Chicago (their website is here) is hosting a forum on Sunday, January 16th at Columbia College from 3 - 6 pm, where the keynote speaker is Howard Dean's campaign manager Joe Trippi. (Chris Rhodes, the info is here).

I'll be on a panel discussing how we can have a greater say in our government and what we can do to ensure that our corporate broadcast media adequately serves the public interest.

A couple of ideas that I like are requiring each station to run a 30 second public service commercial every half hour, even during prime time, instead of repeating the same inane promotion for an upcoming show, where the public service commercial is from the state or local government promoting a particular program; another is requiring stations to devote at least two hours of programming every week to civic affairs to help educate the electorate.

If the federal reps are squeamish about making these improvements a condition of getting their broadcast license from the Federal Communications Commission, then we could say that as a condition of getting our taxpayer dollars to buy commercials for the army or the dumb anti-pot messages or tourism promotions, those stations must abide by the regulations for free public service ads and/or two hours of civic programming.

Debra Pickett gets a great Dan Hynes interview in today's Sun-Times

In today's Sun-Times here Debra Pickett has a Sunday lunch with Dan Hynes. This is a feel-good story, because things worked out better for Dan Hynes in the Senate primary as well (his wife is expecting, and Hynes believes that she wouldn't be if he won the primary).

We should have a lot more of this kind of journalism that delves into the human side of our electeds, as it makes 'understanding politics' such a richer, more interesting thing to do. Politics and government is a drama that never ends, and the more citizens who are engaged with it, the better our public policy will be. This is a lot more interesting to be a part of when you can see the personalities of our electeds.

Also, it's insightful to see how Obama's campaign pulled ahead of Hynes campaign. It wasn't until two and a half or three weeks out that Obama's campaign started to move. Hull's campaign imploded, and the expected movement from Hull supporters would be to Hynes, not Obama. But somehow that didn't happen. Part of that is because Hynes is naturally reserved (a trait he shares with John Kerry, somehow). But part of that is Obama became, surprisingly, a 'political phenomenom' in Hynes' words. Here's a great anecdote from Hynes:

"Three days before the primary, I opened the newspaper and looked at the picture from the St. Patrick's Day parade," he says. "I mean, St. Patrick's Day, that's my day! And there was Barack Obama surrounded by every single Irish politician in town. I'm cropped out of the picture. And I thought to myself, 'That's not good.' "

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Maybe Dan Hynes and John Kerry are very similar. They are both uncomfortable about promoting themselves. They are both reserved. Both Irish Catholic. Both from a strong Democratic organization (though Kerry is more of an adopted son). And they are both driven more by public service than a connection to people. Maybe a lesson is that Clinton's genius or magic was his urge and ability to connect with people. I think Blagojevich has some of that too.

Barack makes the cover of Newsweek

Our man Obama is on the cover of Newsweek.

The article is here.

The writer does make a few mistakes. David Axelrod wasn't the campaign manager (that would be Jim Cauley), but he was the media mastermind with fantastic commercials.

He also regurgitates conventional wisdom that it was a mistake to challenge Bobby Rush in 2000. Give me a break -- that was the right thing to do. Congressman Rush is not nearly as effective as the rest of the congressional delegation, and Obama would have been a dramatic improvement. Besides, contested primaries are good for democracy. Our culture gives too much of an entitlement to incumbents, as if they deserve to keep the seat unless they have really failed. I'm glad Barack ran against Congressman Rush, and while it worked out that since Barack lost, he could run for the U.S. Senate, that still doesn't make the campaign a mistake.

Anyway, here's the cover photo from newscom.com

Card, Snow: Flat tax just might work for Social Security after all

Ah, the flat tax.

Everyone pays the same rate on their income.

Those supply siders love it!

Do they love it for Social Security taxes?

Right now, we have a flat tax of 12.5% until 88K of income, and then a flat tax of 0% on income after that.

The AP has this story where White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and Treasury Secretary John Snow refused to rule out lifting the 88K cap on Social Security taxes. They did refuse to raise the payroll tax rate of 12.5%.

That's about as good as it gets for Blue America, since the payroll tax hits more people than the federal income tax.

If the White House plan includes a higher cap on payroll taxes so we approach a flat tax, I'll count that as a huge victory for a better America.

And good for them for not ruling out a fix on the most unfair part of Social Security so early in the game.

Go-to person in A-G's office for open government created

Phil Kadner in the Daily Southtown has the story here on Lisa Madigan fulfilling a campaign pledge to make government more transparent.

She has appointed Terry Mutchler as the Public Access Counselor in the Attorney-General's office, who will take requests, complaints and questions from anyone in the State about public access to government documents, open meetings and the like.

Terry Mutchler can be reached at (217) 524-1503 or tmutchler@atg.state.il.us

Congratulations to Lisa Madigan and to Terry Mutchler. Let's call our new (free) lawyer, Terry Mutchler when we're not getting answers from our government.

Winkel puts forward a plan to get schools out of the red

State Senator Rick Winkel (R-Urbana) has put forward his plan: raise the state's 3% income tax to 4.75% and raise the state's corporate income tax from 4.8 to 7.6%. With that extra five billion dollars, send half to education and half to property taxpayers as a rebate for 20% of their elementary and secondary education bill.

Kate Clements of the News-Gazette has the story here.

Governor Blagojevich is opposed, but so what?

Senator Del Valle's reaction is insightful. Here's a clip from the article:

Senate Education Chairman Miguel del Valle, D-Chicago, admitted that he would need to obtain a veto-proof majority to reform education funding without Blagojevich's backing, but he was willing to work to build that consensus.

"Will we succeed? I don't know," del Valle said. "Do we have to try? Of course we do. If we don't make an honest attempt, not political posturing and political maneuvering, but an honest attempt to change the way we fund education, then we are being totally irresponsible as a General Assembly."

He characterized the governor and others who have ruled out increasing property taxes to fix the school funding crisis as being in "total avoidance" mode.

"We must start out with an acceptance of the fact that change is needed, and some people still don't want to come to grips with that fact," del Valle said. "It is impossible to reduce the reliance on local property taxes without increasing the state income tax; there is no other way to do it."

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So every legislator and Governor Blagojevich know this -- schools need more money, the local property tax is too high and the only real revenue source is the state income tax.

What percentage of the electorate knows this? I'd guess somewhere close to a third.

Congratulations to Rick Winkel. Let's get some co-sponsors for his bill when he files it in January. Call your state senator and tell them to get on board.

Illinois should index the minimum wage

Could you imagine trying to make a living on six bucks an hour?

That's 240 dollars a week, before taxes.

That's 12 grand a year, before taxes.

That's impossible.

And the federal government has a minimum wage of $5.15!

When the Democrats took over in 2002, they raised the state minimum wage to $6.50, starting 1/1/2005. The bill, SB 600 (Senator Kimberly Lightford, D-Westchester) is here.

Now Illinois should follow the lead of Washington, Oregon, Nevada and Florida, and index the $6.50 minimum wage to inflation, so that it doesn't become less valuable over time.

Representative Toni Berrios has introduced a bill to do that, HB 7358, which is here. (Full disclosure: I had it drafted and asked her to introduce it).

The General Assembly should pass a version of that bill in 2005.

Everyone but the free-market ideologues understands that a higher minimum wage is great for the economy, because it puts money in the pockets of the people who will spend it.

Business Week has a good column on the topic here entitled Minimum Wage: The States Get It.

This is another example of where Blue America must lead when the GOP-led D.C. will not.

Obama gets paid -- almost $2 million to write.

Barack is getting a $1.9 million advance to write three books, one for kids (and that $200,000 is going to charity). So he's really getting $1.7 million to write two books.

That's great.

I remember when there were stacks of Dreams From My Father in the closet of the campaign office, and for $100 a donor would get a signed copy.

It's nice to have a famous black man who is getting serious money for. . . .writing.

Not playing sports or rapping.

That black male role model aspect is part of the fuel of the Ba-Rocket.

Now he's got a real challenge: how to deliver progressive legislation with a 45 seat minority. If we thought Pate was a tough legislative leader, I can't imagine how bad it will be to get bills through White House-staff influenced Frist.