A Little History Lesson For Mark Kirk

As we've discussed earlier this week, Mark Kirk is on a fearmongering mission to stop the detention of former Guantanamo prison inmates, detainees from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, at the super-max federal prison in Thomson, Illinois. He's crying Willis Tower and expecting Illinoisans will get scared and push him right into a Senate seat as their great protector. Kirk doesn't understand that Illinois is made of stronger stuff, or at least it used to be.

My dad told me this story years ago. It was told to him by a now-deceased longtime resident of Des Plaines, part of which is in Kirk's own congressional district. I remembered the story and asked my dad to reconfirm it to make sure I remembered it correctly, and he did.

As it turns out, Illinois has housed POWs before. During WWII, Des Plaines, Illinois (and possibly some of the rural areas surrounding it) housed German POWs. They weren't put in super-max prisons either. They worked on local truck farms growing vegetables. Now, it's easy for many of you to think of these POWs, of German descent, caucasian and Christian, similar to much of the community in which they were housed, as not much of a threat. They were not much more than boys who probably didn't even fully understand Hitler's motives or intentions. However, if we look at each Gitmo detainee, we might not find such a huge difference as many were picked up as teenagers and many were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Also, back when the German POWs were housed in Illinois, Germany was our mortal enemy. We were fighting the second war, a second world war, against them in two decades. The world's Jewish community and the country of France lost millions of civilians in those wars, and we lost over 300,000 soldiers (100x the number lost on 9/11).

As my dad's friend told the story, some of the POWs came back to the United States after the war, settled down and became citizens, citing that their days working on the truck farms of Des Plaines, Illinois were the best days of their lives.

Here is some corroborating evidence, although the post talks about neighboring suburb, Mt. Prospect, along the Des Plaines River.

Hoffman Campaign says poll not a push poll. You tell me.

I've been bombarded with emails criticizing my comment that Hoffman's latest "information ballot" poll was a push poll. Ok, here's the poll off his own site, you tell me.

Here are some of the questions that I question:

ALEXI GIANNOULIAS's family bank had close financial ties with Tony Rezko, one of Rod Blagojevich's top funders who is now in jail, and Alexi Giannoulias met personally with Rezko. Not only did the bank give eleven million dollars in loans to Rezko and his businesses, but the bank also gave Rezko preferential treatment by allowing him to bounce nine checks (at Las Vegas casinos) worth more than five hundred thousand dollars without closing his account or reporting his actions to the authorities ..................................................................................... 62 13 16 8 1[211/208]
ALEXI GIANNOULIAS's family, which owns the Broadway Bank, took seventy million dollars in dividends out of the bank, just before its bad housing loans put the bank's future at risk. In fact, the FDIC has put the bank on its watch list. (Alexi Giannoulias refuses to release his tax returns to show whether he profited from this situation)............................................................................................................. 57 17 18 7 1[210/180]Questions have been raised about ALEXI GIANNOULIAS's family bank and hisown role as a loan officer there. As a loan officer at the bank, Giannoulias made multi-million-dollar loans to convicted Chicago crime figures....................................

Here are the negatives Mr. Hoffman revealed about himself:

DAVID HOFFMAN's experience has been focused mainly on law enforcement and government accountability. He has had little to do with the major issues that affect people on a day-to-day basis, like unemployment or health care ................... 22 20 35 21 2 [177]
DAVID HOFFMAN was a law clerk for William Rehnquist, the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court who was extremely conservative and opposed a woman's right to choose .......................................................................................................... 21 13 22 42 2 [178]
DAVID HOFFMAN is running for U.S. senator with absolutely no previous experience in elected office ...................................................................................... 19 13 26 40 2 [176]

Hoffman sounds like Sarah Palin. According to this poll, Alexi is palling around with criminals and David was so busy fighting crime that he may be a little inexperienced. Not a push poll?

Just for fun, here was the information given in the poll on Mark Kirk:

MARK KIRK supported the economic policies of George W. Bush that led to the worst recession in over fifty years––including Bush's tax cuts that went mainly to people with the highest incomes, tax breaks for companies that send jobs overseas, and a failure to invest in basic needs here at home––and even now he opposes efforts to change those policies.................................................................. 46 15 16 21 2 [212]
Time and again, MARK KIRK has put the corporate special interests before the people. He has taken tens of thousands of dollars from big oil and gas companies, and then voted to give energy companies billions in tax breaks during a time of record deficits. He has taken more than one hundred thousand dollars from drug companies, and voted against allowing the importation of cheaper and safe prescription drugs from Canada ................................................... 45 19 25 10 1 [213]
MARK KIRK has shown no political backbone, and has been criticized for changing his positions on core issues since becoming a Senate candidate. He was one of eight Republicans to vote for the cap-and-trade bill to address climate change, but after conservatives criticized him he announced that he would oppose the bill in the future. As a moderate Republican he expressed doubts about Sarah Palin's selection as the vice presidential candidate last year, but now he is actively seeking Sarah Palin's endorsement for his Senate campaign .....

Hey David, you forgot the part about Kirk voting for every war deficit budget and telling constitutents that he had personal knowledge that there were WMD in Iraq. You said the other day that "no one sent you," I'm beginning to wonder who did in fact send you.

UPDATED: Senate Bill is Out. Provides for Weakened Public Option and Co-ops. Will both provisions survive today's cloture vote?

UPDATE: I'm hearing the vote is Saturday.

*********************************

I've examined a few reliable sources and did a quick look of my own, but I haven't yet read the entire bill. From what I've seen, this is the scoop in a nutshell:

The bill contains an anti-choice provision, but it's something less than the Stupak Amendment, but greater than the old Hyde Amendment. Rescissions are gone as are most, but not all, annual caps. There are some preventive health service requirements. They adopt the Illinois dependent, post-college 26-year-old rule. The changes are paid for through a tax on premium health care plans. The bill eventually reduces, but does not eliminate, the Medicare D donut hole. Coverage denials based on pre-existing conditions are prohibited after 2014. States may choose to allow out of state plans to be offered in their state through a mechanism that allows states to partner up. The Senate bill will allow some plans offered in the exchanges to pay only 60% of health care costs per year.

The exchanges are to be at the state and not federal level, but there is a provision that the Secretary can treat those in each exchanges public option as a single risk pool The public option is described in Section 1323. It's called the Community Health Insurance Option (CHIO). It's not mandatory for providers, and of course, there's that state opt-out. The opt-out has no restrictions, so it can be exercised immediately. This helps those who want to opt-out because they can do it during the waiting period before most of the bill provisions kick in and before anyone gets a chance to want or even see the public option in operation. Given the animosity over health care, it's easy to imagine what's going to happen in state legislatures if this becomes law and should give people reason to study the health care creds of their state legislature candidates. This is a cowardly approach as it simply shifts the battle to the states.

States can mandate coverages in the CHIO, but only at no federal cost. Premiums will be "sufficient to cover costs." Reimbursement rates are to be negotiated, but not higher than other plans in the exchanges. This thing cannot be called "robust" or "strong" by any stretch of the imagination. The bill also provides for the creation of co-ops, Section 1322. I wonder which provision will survive further negotiation.

Senate Democrats put out a vague summary. Reuter's put out a "Factbox" on the bill and AP does a comparison of the Senate and House bills, but you'll probably learn more by reading it yourself. The bill is still subject to change and from what we saw in the House, it's possible that major changes can be made at the last minute.

Senate Democrats proudly proclaim that 94% of Americans will be covered by insurance under this bill. They forget to mention that it's because they will be mandated to purchase insurance. The mandate can be found in Section 5000A. It kicks in a year before the pre-existing exclusion exclusion does. Each month an individual goes without insurance, he or she is taxed, to be reported on his or her tax return, 1/12 of something that will be called the Applicable Dollar amount which has been set at $750 with some restrictions and limitations, a phase-in provision and a cost of living adjustment. It's pretty convoluted, so if you do your own taxes because you cannot afford either an accountant or insurance, you'll really have a problem. There is a religion conscience exemption, so I imagine this will create fertile recruiting ground for religions that do not favor medical care. The religion has to be pre-existing and generally accepted, so sorry, you cannot create your own religion to get you out of the mandate.

The subsidies are at subparagraph (e) of the same section with more at Section 1402. Subsidies end at 400% above the poverty line.

Those below 133% of the poverty line will be covered by Medicaid, see Section 2001. Above that, there are some state options.

Employer mandates are at Section 1513. I haven't had a chance to go through it yet. Try back later. Small employers get a tax credit. See Section 1421.

David Hoffman: Social Liberal, Fiscal Conservative-ish

This evening I attended Tenth Dems University's Meet the Candidates, David Hoffman edition. Hoffman is running for U.S. Senate, Barack's seat.

Hoffman is a graduate of Yale and received his law degree from the University of Chicago. He worked for Pat Fitzgerald for 5 years in the Narcotics and Gangs section investigating drug trafficking and money laundering cases against street gangs and prosecuting white collar crime. After that, he became Inspector General for the City of Chicago, a position he claims makes him a credible independent. He also worked for conservative Democratic Senator David Boren who was famous for being one of two Democrats voting for Robert Bork's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. However, Hoffman worked as a legislative assistant on the foreign policy side.

Hoffman started with the Illinois ethics issue. He said republicans smell blood in the water and that the seat is vulnerable. He pointed out that the National Journal proclaimed this senate seat the No. 2 at risk seat for Democrats. Hoffman feels his candidacy takes the corruption issue off the table. He has no connection to Rezko or Blagojevich and as he put it, "no one sent him." As I've said before, my concern with this line of campaigning is that the press will pick up on those points; the agenda will stay on Illinois state ethics and never move to the issues that U.S. Senator's deal with such as the economy, health care, foreign policy and so on.

Hoffman moved on to health care. He's a solid public option supporter. He made a comment that troubled me. He said that it was great that the public option "passed in the form that it did." I'm not entirely sure what he meant by that. I prefaced my question with that comment, but he didn't clarify it. Even most public option advocates such as Howard Dean and Sherrod Brown would tell you that it passed in a far more watered down version that they would have liked, so I'm puzzled why Hoffman thought the particular form was good.

At least he understood that the Stupak Amendment was wrong. He is strongly pro-choice and spoke against the Hyde Amendment also.

Hoffman's specific health care issue is preventive care. He views the issue as similar to the Ford Pintos in the 1970s where a company decided it was cheaper to pay on the back end, after people have been hurt. Hoffman would like to mandate preventive care.

Education and the environment were next up. Hoffman talked about a program at Providence St. Mels where creative solutions to create "a supportive, structured and safe environment," together with high expectations of students, are bringing success in that all students are graduating and moving on to college. He contrasted that program with No Child Left Behind, a Mark Kirk supported law that favors teaching to the test (and Hoffman forgot to mention that it gave a lot of business to Bush brother Neil who is in the teaching to the test industry).

Renewable energy is Hoffman's environment issue. He believes it is key to our national security. Mark Kirk used to think that too until his senate election became more important to him than national security (or it always was).

Hoffman then talked about gay rights. He is for gay marriage and not civil unions, the latter representing "a second class alternative in a society of equality." He is also for repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act and for repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

He points to his work with Senator Boren as his foreign policy credentials and talked about attending foreign policy meetings and traveling with Boren around the world. Hoffman says we should not be afraid to show force and that we need to be realistic about groups that want to destroy us, and particularly realistic about Iran which he called "a barbaric and anti-Semitic regime." However, he believes that Bush squandered the world's sympathy over the 9/11 attacks. Hoffman is against the McCrystal plan to sent an additional 30,000 or 40,000 to Afghanistan. He read the declassified McCrystal report and believes McCrystal's plans to send troops out to every corner of Afghanistan to win over the hearts and minds of all Afghans are grandiose. Since most of Al-Qaeda is in the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan, he believes sending troops throughout Afghanistan is unnecessary and unnecessarily risky and he believes that it is wrongheaded to want to tightly control Afghanistan.

Hoffman closed with the ethics issue again. He said that Illinois tolerance for scandals stained our state's conscious and character. and he wants to take that back, but doesn't say how he's going to do that from the U.S. Senate (neither does Mark Kirk). I'm left wondering why he's not running for State Senate.

I asked my single payer question and Hoffman recognized it as such. I quoted his comment about the form of the public option back to him and asked him what about preserving private insurance is important to our health care system. He didn't answer my question, but gave the standard Democratic congressional wannabe answer, basically it was all that was politically possible. Hoffman's non-answer, added to all the other non-answers to the same question asked around the country, proves once again that there is no policy reason to preserve the insurance industry.

Another audience member asked Hoffman about housing and settlements in Israel. Hoffman believes that Israel should be allowed natural growth, but touted Israel's sometimes decision to back off when needed. He does not think that stopping settlements will bring peace to the area saying that peace will only come with unilateral action on the part of the Palestinians to stop supporting terrorism.

Hoffman agrees that a second stimulus is needed, but didn't elaborate on how it should take form other than to include some money for renewable energy. One part of his answer raised a question in my mind. He said that he only recently changed his mind about the need for a second stimulus. Since unemployment is around 9-10% he now thinks that the pain and suffering is now great enough to call for additional spending. Otherwise, apparently, he'd be against additional spending. He called himself a fiscal conservative at this point, a social liberal and fiscal conservative (where have we heard that before), leaving me to wonder whether we'd end up with a Blue Dog Senator if we elected him.

How can we bring stimulus to Illinois, in particular? By making it the Saudi Arabia of Wind. Again, renewable energy. A worthy issue. No one asked him about the pending climate change bill that caused Kirk so much consternation.

Hoffman is for raising caps on social security, but added that he'd protect the Trust Fund from raiding.

He was asked about the terrorist trials and incarceration. Hoffman talked about the nature of a federal super max prison and mentioned that no one's ever escaped. These are safe prisons and our system works. If we're serious about closing Guantanamo, we have to find a reasonable place to house the detainees and in a federal super max prison is the best place. Kirk's just fearmongering.

Hoffman was more impressive than I expected him to be. He's well spoken and I feel he could do very well in a debate against Kirk. I remain troubled by his insistence on sticking with Blagojevich as his main campaign issue and believe the press will never let him off it. He began and ended his speech with the issue, so I'd expect all news reports on Hoffman's campaign, particularly those by our local media, still hung up on Kirk, to mention Blagojevich in every report on Hoffman and tie him to Blagojevich in that way despite Hoffman's lack of association, prior work fighting government corruption, and quips that "no one sent him." He was expectedly disappointing on health care, but all the Democrats have run away on that issue except Kucinich and Massa. (Sanders is an independent.) While he specifically touted the "form" of the public option that passed the House, I believe that Hoffman doesn't really understand it, and that if he did, he would not have made that comment. If he looks it up and thereafter stands by that comment, I'll be more worried about him. Most troubling to me was that Hoffman was only recently moved to understanding the need for stimulus and self-described as a fiscal conservative. Mark Kirk always told us he was socially moderate and fiscally conservative. Hoffman says he'll be socially liberal, but fiscally conservative, except when things get really bad. I'd like to see things not get that bad before we spend and I think that waiting for things to get this bad for the average non-Wall Street executive American was a bad idea.

**Correction: The town is Thomson, IL. There is a Thomas, but it's near Danville. I'm sorry for the mistake. I checked 3 sources and usually think I'm good to go then, but guess not.

Mark Kirk Recycles

UPDATE:
Crankyboy commented: Kirk proves that terrorism works because Kirk's afraid of them. Kirk's afraid of a group of people living in caves eating canned goods heated over an open fire. People as susceptible to terrorist threats as Mark Kirk should not be in office.

*****************************

Mark Kirk is going full court press on his effort to stop the creation of federal prison jobs in Thomas, Illinois. His latest tactic is to fearmonger with the notion that people from Iraq and Afghanistan are going to flood into Chicago through O'Hare Airport to visit them. That Kabul/Baghdad/O'Hare line is going to get busy. You might want to buy stock in the airline that makes that run. However, travelers might run into some visa issues. There are travel restrictions for travel from Iraq and Afghanistan to the United States. Those seeking a visa have to meet with the consular office for an interview.

Part of Kirk's "be very afraid" effort includes an old favorite, threating the now Willis Tower. Kirk used the same tactic to press for continued funding of the Iraq War and roll back of Americans' Fourth Amendment rights back in 2007 when the tower was still named after Sears.

Mark, you're recycling. It's environmentally friendly if not good policy. Recycling is not a notion your friends over at Palin headquarters or the teabag hat factory are going to like.

In other Senate campaign news, David Hoffman's campaign responded to my earlier question asking why Hoffman is following Kirk's campaign agenda. You can take a look at it in the comments.

Please, Please David. Tell Me Why.

Progress Illinois quoted Senate candidate David Hoffman who appeared on ABC 7's Newsviews yesterday. Mr. Hoffman is touting his self-proclaimed credential as the better Democratic candidate to stave off the corruption dialogue. Among other things, Hoffman said:

I think the press has been very consistent about this: that there are vulnerabilities that are very strong on the Democratic side. And the main reason is the corruption scandals: the Blagojevich issue and others.

Excuse me. Who mentioned Blagojevich? I believe that was................. you.

David, why are you planning to run the campaign Mark Kirk most wants you to run? Why are you not talking about the economy, health care, 2 wars that need to come to an end, climate change? These are issues that Illinoisans want figured out and soon. The rest is past and the problem is on both sides, and most importantly, it's not a U.S. Senate issue, it's a state issue and our state senators and reps know they must handle it.

It seems that David Hoffman is not only running Kirk's ideal race for him, he's making the same mistakes the health care reform advocacy groups made early on, making their opponents' case for them and setting the bar too low. David, don't fall into Mark Kirk's agenda. Set your own. If this is your agenda, it seems to me you're happy to win a primary and lose the general.

Arguments for Faulty Reform Coming In Faster Than I Can Open Them. Is Nothing Better Than Nothing?

From Dick Durbin to Chris Van Hollen over at DCCC to Jeremy Bird from OFA (DNC) to Campaign for America's Future to an HCAN devotee I know from the District, I'm getting the emails to support exchanges and subsidies in place of health care reform. Durbin is going for an old favorite, the polls show people want it. Polls favored the Iraq War back in 2003 too and that didn't make it a good idea. Van Hollen is still calling the public option strong (as opposed to robust?) hoping no ones noticed that we moved from robust to strong to way past weak a week or so ago. Jeremy wants me to join a rapid response team, but somehow I don't think he really means it as the request applies to me or anyone like me. He's the one who threatened to kick me out of OFA and told me it would be up the the folks in DC. At the time, I didn't know he actually meant DNC. I suspect Jeremy isn't looking for me and would rather have people who will tow the line. My local acquaintance is disappointed, but wants me to support the bill as better than nothing.

Added to the arguments is a new one. If we don't support this bill, we're going to damage Democrats. We'll be fracturing the party like the republicans fractured theirs because we are demanding purety. This is a non-starter with me for oh so many reasons. First, I don't remember my mother telling me I was born for the benefit of the Democratic party. While my existence has been beneficial to them on occassion, I don't remember the part that says I'm supposed to exist for them. If all they can give us are lobbyist written bills that enrich corporations to the detriment of average Americans, I'm not sure that there is any real difference between Democrats and republicans other than the looney factor of the latter. I don't think "at least we aren't looney" is a really great campaign slogan for longlasting party viability. They need to do better than that.

Second, purety? They have to be kidding. This bill isn't even close. They gave up before they started. They immediately and up front took all other approaches off the table, whittled down their own approach to bare bones, and actively worked to silence discussion of anything else. Democratic Senators had activists of the base seeking a voice in hearings arrested. This is all not to mention the bait and switch at the end where an anti-choice amendment was substituted for the Weiner and Kucinich single payer amendments.

Even in my small corner of the Internet world, the purge was under way. I've watched my single payer posts disappear from Democratic leaning blogs. As I mentioned above and my regular readers will remember, OFA threatened to kick me off the site for saying single payer would be discussed at my house party.

Closer to home, I've previously reported that HCAN and MoveOn members have been trolling our local Medicare for All sites telling single payer advocates they should not be allowed to have discussions about advocating for single payer on their own sites. However, I don't think I ever told you this next story. I was asked to speak at an HCAN house party back in June. They asked me. I did not ask them if I could speak. Now, I've spoken in a lot of places over the years, and I've never been treated so rudely. I spoke about the contents of the HELP bill that had just been released. The discussion was purely an overview of the bill. I didn't disparage the public option and made it clear that I wasn't going to prior to the meeting. While the bill is lengthy, I was prepared to be very brief. Even so, the host refused to introduce me before I spoke. Right before I spoke, she gave a glowing introduction for the HCAN speaker who was to speak after me, but said absolutely nothing about me, not even my name. It was an uncomfortable moment, but I introduced myself, put a smile on my face and forged ahead. Then, I was cut off literally just a couple of minutes into my speech. They were worried the HCAN speaker wouldn't have enough time. The HCAN rebuttal speaker proceeded to misquote me all through his speech and didn't need all the time they provided him. Fortunately, the audience had plenty of time to make mincemeat out of him and I quietly left. These were people that I know and have worked with before. What made them think it was appropriate to be so rude?

Then, in July, HCAN held that fake debate in Arlington Heights, the one I reported on that was sponsored by HCAN with all the speakers from HCAN depicting parties on the various sides of the issue with no disclosure.

The reason I just went through this long dialogue was not to complain, but to show there's something odd here. This isn't SOP in the Democratic Party that I know. It's more reminicient of the lead up to the Iraq War, clamping down on anyone who'd ask a question or have a different view, dishonesty about the facts, including lies by omission. With all these antics and the "off the table" shout downs on the Internet and in meetings, and those hearing arrests, it seems to me, those pushing for the public option have lost perspective and are the ones purging the party of dissent and seeking purety. The Medicare for All advocates have never sought to purge any view or any person. We just wanted a CBO score, a hearing and an up or down vote.

As for the locals, their email sounded dejected, but said we needed to make a final stand against the insurance lobbyists. I'm thinking they mean we should make the insurance lobbyists understand that, while we do floors, we don't do windows. They want me to take some bus into the city tomorrow to stand in front of Blue Cross, probably so I can cheer while one of their leaders yells at the doorman or janitor or maybe the person who comes in every week to water the plants. I imagine if I showed up for that bus tomorrow, my seat would magically disappear. Why do they still send me these emails?

Finally, is this bill better than nothing? Some say yes pointing to language that drops pre-existing exclusions, policy caps and rescission. We'll have to watch that language closely as it's very likely to meet it's own large bucket of water in the Senate just after the public option dissolves completely. Others argue that subsidizing the insurance industry will entrench it so further reform will be more difficult and not easier to obtain. Further, CBO concluded that only about 2% of the people in the exchanges, about 6 million people, would sign up for a public option were it to survive. CBO also predicted public plan premiums would be higher, mostly because it would "attract a less healthy pool of enrollees". That's the cherry picking we were supposed to be stopping.

CMS also studied the bill. CMS is the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. They're the folks who administer the coverages of Medicare and Medicaid. CMS' Office of the Actuary put together the report. The report shows an increase in the number of people covered by CHIP and a decrease in the number of uninsured, but the latter is the mandates at work, mandates that we'll have to pay through subsidies. CMS says what I've been saying all along, the future effects are really uncertain because most of the changes are incentives to behavior that hopefully lead to a better spread of the risk, but in no way insure the same. (See the top of page 4).

I have to conclude that this bill is not better than nothing. If it gets passed in current form, and that's unlikely, we get some reforms that are good, but at a terrible cost in dollars and in the inability to make further improvements. We will be creating an infrastructure that is put in place to funnel tax dollars to the insurance industry. Once it's in place, it will be difficult to get rid of it. We'll also create an insurance subsidy monster to rival the oil subsidy monster and be entrenching the very risk unbalance we originally sought to stop. If the Senate makes further changes, we all know the changes are all going in one direction, downhill. The good parts of this measure will be even less than they are now. At that point, we'll be fighting for nothing more than saving face for the Democrats and as I said before, that isn't my purpose on earth.

*******************
Don't want to believe me, take a look at this well written analysis.

Mark Kirk Against Prison Use, But Residents Want It

There's been talk of housing some Gitmo detainees in an underused prison in Thomson a small town in northwestern Illinois. Thomson residents want it for the jobs, but Illinois Senate candidate Mark Kirk says no. He wrote a letter to President Obama urging the Administration to stop the deal:

Dear Mr. President:
According to the Chicago Tribune, your Administration may transfer up to 200 Al Qaeda terrorists from their detention facility in Guantanamo Bay a prison in Thomson, Illinois, 150 miles from Chicago.

If your Administration brings Al Qaeda terrorists to Illinois, our state and the Chicago Metropolitan Area will become ground zero for Jihadist terrorist plots, recruitment and radicalization.Furthermore, since Thomson is located in the Northern District of Illinois, any civilian prosecution of Al Qaeda terrorists would occur in Rockford or downtown Chicago.

As home to America's tallest building, we should not invite Al Qaeda to make Illinois its number one target.

The United States spent more than $50 million to build the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to keep terrorists away from U.S. soil. Al Qaeda terrorists should stay where they cannot endanger American citizens.As elected officials in the State of Illinois, we urge you to put the safety and security of Illinois families first and stop any plan to transfer Al Qaeda terrorists to our state.

Kirk favored transferring prisoners out of Guantamamo before he disfavored it.

I imagine Thomas residents won't be lining up to vote for Kirk for Senate. First, he supported the policies that created the bad economy and then he denies jobs to a town desperate for them.

Thomson Village President Jerry "Duke" Hebeler showed a little more courage and common sense than Kirk:

A murderer is a murderer no matter where he's from.

Kirk doesn't seem to understand that the Gitmo detainees would be in prison and not at the local Days Inn.

Let's Do The Right Thing for A Change. Do Not Escalate In Afghanistan

H1N1 Profits No Match vs. Profits on Sexual Dysfunction and Restless Leg Syndrome. Corporations should not be setting our national priorities.

While Fox News tells its viewers that the shortage of H1N1 vaccines proves that government cannot be involved in health care, not even as a single payer as opposed to an actual provider because they refuse to recognize the distinction, Barbara Ehrenreich gives us some facts in her recent article, The Swine Flu Vaccine Screw-Up: Optimism as a Public Health Problem. Pharmas promised vaccine before Halloween, but they failed to keep their promise. Why? They used an old, slow technology for growing the viruses used in the vaccine. Ehrenreich explains:

As for Big Pharma, the truth is that they're just not all that into vaccines, traditionally preferring to manufacture drugs for such plagues as erectile dysfunction, social anxiety, and restless leg syndrome. Vaccines can be tricky and less than maximally profitable to manufacture. They go out of style with every microbial mutation, and usually it's the government, rather than cunning direct-to-consumer commercials, that determines who gets them. So it should have been no surprise that Big Pharma approached the H1N1 problem ploddingly, using a 50-year old technology involving the production of the virus in chicken eggs, a method long since abandoned by China and the European Union.

While their lobby creates the meme that Pharmas save lives by overcharging us for drugs sold much more cheaply in other countries, they are really busy making up diseases and selling remedies for them. This market and advertising driven drug research system in this country left us short on H1N1 vaccines and left parents scrambling for Tamiflu for their kids. It's a disaster all right, but a disaster made by corporations, not government. It proves that corporations cannot be trusted with our health, so why are we creating a new health care infrastructure around them?

My mom asked me to write about her recent experience with pharma pricing. As many of you know, she's been very ill and in and out of the hospital a couple of times. After her first hospital stay, she received a prescription for an antibiotic, 3 pills. The cost was about $47. A few days later, she was back in the hospital for about a week this time. Upon her discharge, she was given another prescription for the same exact antibiotic, same number of pills. The price for the exact same prescription just over one week from the original purchase, $83. My dad asked the pharmacist what was going on. She had no idea.

It's clear that big pharma needs to be controlled more closely by government and not the other way around. So, why were they given such a prominent position in health care reform? Money of course.

Mark Kirk: Tie Our Economy to China's

Mark Kirk's Iraq War tied our economy to China. We borrowed so much from China for that war that we are beholden to them and then some. The non-manufacturing, fully consumer economy we got from the free markets touted by Kirk tied us even more to China. We'll have to start paying American workers on the Chinese pay scale to rebuild the manufacturing economy we threw away per some economists. Now, Kirk's going a step further. He wants us to be in constant economic contact with China through the establishment of an economic hotline.

Kirk made a statement getting little press here, but apparently a lot in China:

The United States' monetary policy "should be carefully coordinated with America's largest creditor (China).

I guess, Kirk doesn't want us to make a financial move without the approval of the corporate controlled Chinese government, maybe it's part of the loan terms.

"Hey, Bill. What the H*ll Happened!"

UPDATE: Proves my point re OFA. More HCAN follies around the country.

UPDATE: National HCAN just advised the Senate to use the House bill as the model health care reform bill proving that they do in fact have rocks in their heads over there. I guess they like high costs and anti-choice laws. Robert Reich has a much better idea than begging AHIP to call off the anti-reform dogs.

**************************

The new version of I'm Just a Bill. It's about climate change, but the same thing happened to health care reform, not to mention the stimulus and unemployment benefits bills.

In the meantime, having little luck with Congress, HCAN Illinois decided to negotiate with the body it apparently deems more powerful than Congress, the insurance lobby. They've asked for a meeting with AHIP at AHIP's Chicago Conference on November 17th. I'm trying to understand what this requested meeting is supposed to accomplish. One interpretation is that Congress is so muddled that the American people now have to go hat in hand to lobbying groups begging them to lobby less on their clients behalf and more on ours. I'm not so sure that's going to work because there is no reason they would do that for us. There's no money in it for them and a lobbyist can't have two diametrically opposed clients. It's a conflict of interest. I'd also argue that it's a bad idea to abandon our electoral foodchain position over Congress to corporate lobbyists and it's a really bad idea for the progressive grassroots to partner with K street lobbies and there's the rub. They've sort of already done just that, but with the White House and Congressional Democrats.

Groups like HCAN, OFA and Moveon have become lobbyists representing the interests of the White House and Congressional Democrats. They haven't been lobbying Congress. They've been lobbying us, trying to get us to accept an poorly drawn bill so our elected officials can get off the hook on their promises of reform. These groups have stopped acting like grassroots activists advocating for people in need, as they claim to be, and started acting just like DC insiders seeking power and perks. They crashed the gates only to become the imperial guard.

Ultimately, I think HCAN's letter to AHIP is just a bunch of empty grandstanding to try to remain relevant after big insurance and big pharma blew by them months ago dominating congressional hearings and meeting with Obama directly. They can't say I didn't warn them early on.

I think the answer is that the grassroots activists need to grow their numbers and stop worrying about offending our elected officials. We need to demand change, draw a line in the sand and stop supporting candidates that won't take the political risk. We need to stand up for ourselves and for Bill, a real reform bill.

Tell Northbrook How You Feel About the 70 Gun Giveaway

On October 27, 2009, the Village Board of the Village of Northbrook approved an ordinance providing for the disposal of surplus police department duty weapons, seventy, 17-year-old Beretta Centurion 92FS'. They decided to give them away to the officers who used them for unrestricted personal use. Under the ordinance, if an officer doesn't want his or her weapon, it is supposed to be disposed of through the Northern Illinois Police Crime Lab. You can take a look at the gun and specs here. It's a semi-automatic handgun, not for shooting dinner.

Northbrook police Chief Charles Wernick defended the proposal telling the Tribune,"We certainly could have traded them in to a dealer who would put them back on the street." Some departments require officers to purchase their own guns, so this isn't all that much different. Other departments throw them into a nearby body of water which I'm not sure is such a good idea because they could show up somewhere eventually, but it does give a whole new meaning to the phrase "sleeping with the fishes."

Many residents of Northbrook and the surrounding suburbs are upset about the gun giveaway because it will put more weapons in our neighborhood. Lee Goodman of Northbrook, pointed out that "The rates of suicide, domestic violence, alcoholism, drug abuse, and depression among police are just as high, or higher, than among the general population."

Even if you don't think the average Northbrook police person would misuse the gun, there is always the risk of someone else happening upon it, like a curious child, or it will be tragically available during an argument.

The giveaway seems to be out of the spirit of existing gun laws in Northbrook. Goodman, an attorney, told me: "There are no retail gun stores in Northbrook, and the Village Zoning Code severely limits the locations where any such store could be opened by requiring that it be at least 1500 feet from any school or park. The Zoning Code also contains an outright ban on the retail sale of handguns. Obviously the Village Board recognizes that guns are dangerous. They have written laws to keep guns out of town. It makes no sense for the Village to be sending its employees home with extra guns.”

While some might argue that off duty police are always on duty, it seems like a bad idea to scatter 70 handguns in our community. If the guns are no longer adequate or otherwise appropriate for service, they shouldn't be used in any off-duty service either. These are not hunting weapons or target practice weapons, so there is no arguable good use for them. They will be 70 little time bombs waiting to go off just like any other handgun. However, I don't like the idea of dumping them in a nearby body of water either. Melting them down sounds like the best idea to me.

Due to resident complaints, it appears that the Village Board is going to revisit the issue before implementing the plan. It will be on the agenda at the next Village Board meeting, 7:30 pm Tuesday, November 17 at 1225 Cedar Lane, Northbrook. If you have an opinion on the issue and live in Northbrook or the surrounding communities, you might want to attend.