U.S. Rep. John Murtha dies following gallbladder surgery

Murtha’s critics recall the Abscam corruption probe, in which the FBI caught him on videotape in a 1980 sting operation turning down a $50,000 bribe offer while holding out the possibility that he might take money in the future.

“We do business for a while, maybe I’ll be interested and maybe I won’t,” Murtha said on the tape.

Six congressmen and one senator were convicted in that case. Murtha was not charged, but the government named him as an unindicted co-conspirator and he testified against two other congressmen.

Murtha’s district encompasses all or parts of nine counties in southwestern Pennsylvania and embodies the region’s stereotypes of coal mines, steel mills and blue-collar values.

Constituents credited Murtha with bringing jobs and health care to the region, delivering hundreds of millions of dollars for local industry, hospitals and tourism. Critics derisively nicknamed Murtha the “king of pork” and said he used his position on the defense subcommittee to win favors.

UPDATE: 

Opinion:  I’m against the Form-Based Code (FBC) as it relates to Main Street, Bloomington/Normal.  There are current, workable codes already in place.  FBC is restrictive (I’ll have details on this later);  and in this instance, an infringement on property rights for businesses and residents.  In some areas, FBC might work.  Not here.

The second point is having a Task Force and a facilitator.  The FBC is already under question and knocked off Council agendas for further study.  Many question the need for the Task Force, let alone an expensive facilitator at a time when budgets are under stress.  What do City Council members do, as representatives of their constituents, if not “facilitate” discussions like these, regarding the Form-Based Code?

And lastly, since the decision made to have a facilitator has been made. . . of all the facilitators in the state, should it be one with a bias toward the controversial Form-Based Code?  Should it be a facilitator who is a member of the Mayor of Normal’s campaign committee?

From March 29, 2009 Pantagraph article about Main Street Corridor: Form Based Code’s new facilitator for the Task Force Committee, which is in the process of being formed.  Does this give the appearance of a stacked deck before the Committee even meets? The Hile Group, led by Julie Hile, from Normal, has been hired at $25,000 to be the facilitator for the Main Street Corridor FBC Task Force.

My question would be, shouldn’t a facilitator be perceived as unbiased?  And while Ms. Hile may be fine person and a good facilitator, this controversial subject should not start with a Task Force under the direction of a facilitator with a perceived bias toward support of the form-based code, and also a member of Normal Mayor Chris Koos’ campaign committee.

Local group finding support in creation of ‘green’ jobs

Julie Hile of Normal said she visited Washington D.C., recently with more than 30 residents of McLean County, and they were very well-received by Durbin and Halverson when discussing issues related to the environment.

“There’s a lot of very positive energy,” Hile said. “I don’t feel like we need to be putting pressure on hardly anybody.”

Hile suggested the assembled group use the momentum that was created by the trip.

“McLean County is positioned already and working to become even better positioned as one of Barack Obama’s shining lights,” said Hile.

___________________________________________________________________

As the Town of Normal considers closed meetingson this controversial zoning subject, let’s start re-visiting a subject near and dear to me and many others;  the Form Based Code (FBC). . . . relating to zoning code changes in Normal, FBC language is also written into the downtown Bloomington development plan and the McLean County long-term development plan.

More on this later, I’m still resting up from my very tiring but enjoyable election victory, but as a consultant to B/N Main Street business owners who after research, shared and voiced initial concerns about the FBC; let me just give you this as food for thought for now.

Our group, recently officially formed as the Main Street Association; made up of business owners along the Bloomington/Normal “Main Street Corridor”, fought and brought to light concerns regarding what a form-based code really means for business owners and residents.

The controversy caused B/N City Councils, and the other entities pushing the FBC zoning; Bromenn, IWU and ISU to take the FBC off the agendas for a vote, and suggested forming a “Task Force” made up of representatives from each of these groups to discuss the FBC controversy.

Now, months later; a “facilitator” has been hired to oversee the Task Force.  It’s The Hile Group; a local company from Normal, IL, led by Julie Hile.  This group will be paid $25,000 to facilitate.  Not sure what that means yet, but let me quote Normal City Councilman Adam Nielsen, who has gotten the message about the form-based code concerns, expressed them along with the need for a $25,000 “facilitator”:

NORMAL — City Councilman Adam Nielsen is questioning the need to hire an outside group to facilitate a Main Street Corridor task force studying a proposed form-based code.

Nielsen also believes the entire Main Street Corridor issue has gone on too long.

“Somewhere along this long-winding path … I fell off the bandwagon,” he said at Monday night’s council meeting. “If we were to vote on form-based code tonight, I don’t know I could support it.”

Nielsen was the lone vote against hiring the Hile Group to lead the task force.

More on “the facilitator”:

In 2004, Julie Hile and others led a “Visionary Committee” report for the Town of Normal. 

START UP: Send a coalition from the Town of Normal, the City of Bloomington, and McLean County (citizens, council and zoning board members, developers) to the June 24-27, 2004 Congress for New Urbanism in Chicago with the charge of exploring cost-benefit of the approach and its applicability at this point in the Town/City/County’s development. Find and make good use of facilitators skilled in leading charette processes to broaden local dialogue about this issue as an extension of what the coalition learns in Chicago.

Referencing the words in bold above New Urbanism and Charette Processes; let me just say for now those = Form-Based Code.

Not sure why The Hile Group, which appears to be fully supportive of Form-Based Code zoning, would be; of all consulting groups that were surely considered, the one selected to be the “facilitator.”

More later.

WHAT IS THE FORM-BASED CODE? Here’s one version, or,

Go to my speech on the local form-based code issue, here.

Well, it was fun while it lasted, but looks like Madigan must have made Cohen an offer he couldn’t refuse.

***

By KAREN HAWKINS
The Associated Press
Last update Feb 07, 2010 @ 08:42 PM

CHICAGO — The Democratic nominee for Illinois’ lieutenant governor dropped out of the race Sunday night, less than a week after winning the nomination, amid a political uproar about his past.

In announcing his decision at a Chicago bar packed with people watching the Super Bowl, Scott Lee Cohen said the Democrats were not certain they could win with him on the ticket.

Since Cohen won the Democratic nomination on Tuesday, it has become widely known that he was accused of abusing his ex-wife and holding a knife to the throat of an ex-girlfriend — a woman who was herself charged with prostitution. He also admits using steroids in the past.

“For the good of the people of the state of Illinois and the Democratic Party, I will resign,” a clearly emotional Cohen said in a rambling speech made as the Super Bowl halftime entertainment blared in the background. . . .

SOURCE

America has spoken. Will you hear the message? No. But your fellow Democrat office holders who don’t want you dragging them to the bottom like an anchor have heard. Now, wander off and enjoy the rest of your one and only term of office.

***

Poll: ObamaCare a bad idea
A new poll out doesn’t have very encouraging numbers for Democrats still working to pass comprehensive reform through Congress.

The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finds:

– 46 percent think President Obama’s health care plan is a bad idea, 31 percent think it’s a good idea while 22 percent have no opinion.

–49 percent said it would be a step backward should it become law while 44 percent said it would be a step forward.

–44 percent said Obama is giving health care too much attention while only 16 percent said the president is giving it too little shrift. 38 percent believe it’s getting just the right amount of attention.

And a stat that may give pause to moderates worried about jamming through reform after Massachusetts elected Republican Sen. Scott Brown:

–48 percent thought Brown’s election was meant to send a signal to Washington while 15 percent said it was not. 36 percent of those polled had no opinion.

POLITICO

I’m sure we all fondly recall the good old days when Stephenson the Younger found himself knee-deep in a ticket containing other traditional Democrats: the LaRouchies. The result was he withdrew as a Democrat and ran under the banner of the “Solidarity Party.” It may be time to get out the old Solidarity signs again, this time so Pat the mighty Quinn can bolt the sinking Democrat ticket; and probably with the same result. Heck the Republicans won’t even have to cheat this time! Yes, Bloomington, Bill Brady may well be our Governor, which would be a far greater thing to my mind than that pseudo-Republican Kirk being elected to the Senate. But, alas, it seems Kirk is destined for victory as well.

For the candidate of unsavory character of whom I speak in the title of this little epistle is none other than the Democrats’ Candidate for Senate, Alexi Giannoulias. Here’s a POLITICO story about a minor part of Alexi’s problems: running his family bank into the ground. Unreported in that story are his mob-ties and questionable loans to a mob enforcer who, ironically, ran the hooker division of that particular mob organization. In fact, Alexi’s only qualification for “high” office appears to be that he was a basketball buddy with our quota president. Whether Alexi and Barry O passed anything between them besides basketballs remains to be discovered. Puff, puff, pass. It remains to be seen whether the party will demand Alexi resign due to his history and put in a candidate with a chance of defeating the RINO.

In the meantime, this leaves the mighty Quinn with a dilemma. Does he stay on the ticket with the unsavory Giannoulias or does he play the Stephenson card and bolt, with the predictable election results. Time will tell but the Dem party is off to a bad start. The thought is, the party soldiers can get out the word to the party faithful to vote for Quinn, not the Democrat, but that didn’t work so well with Adlai the Lesser and, as we’ve seen, the party committeemen haven’t exactly been on top of it as far as getting the word out in this election cycle already.

Oh, and compounding the problem with Giannoulias, I hear rumor that there may be some problem with another Democrat candidate for a constitutional office as well! Someone pass the popcorn!

And this from Crain’s Election workers still counting ballots

(AP) — Cook County Clerk David Orr says each vote is crucial — especially for close races in Illinois’ primary election.

He says all 24 precincts in suburban Cook County have reported results.

But there’s still about 800 provisional ballots that need to be checked individually.

On Wednesday morning, workers at the Cook County Board of Elections counted 635 ballots at a warehouse on Chicago’s West Side. Those ballots came from 13 of 24 precincts in suburban Cook County where there were issues transmitting ballots on Tuesday.

At least 1,000 absentee ballots were also to be counted. The absentee ballots had to be postmarked Monday, but have two weeks to arrive at county offices.

Chicago Tribune

With two razor-thin statewide races hanging in the balance, the normally mundane task of counting votes in a few straggling precincts came under a spotlight Wednesday in Cook County and Chicago.

As a phalanx of campaign workers watched intently from inside enormous chain-link cages typically used as warehouse storage for voting machines, county election workers fed ballots into an array of counting machines throughout much of the day.

The county election workers finished in the morning, but it took their city counterparts until dinnertime to count the last of the outstanding Election Day ballots.

Both Democratic and Republican primaries for governor are too close to call. A statewide trickle of absentee ballots and tabulations of provisional ballots could keep candidates in both races waiting weeks for a decision.

Look for the Illinois State Medical Association to march on the Supreme Court Building with torches and pitchforks; and rightfully so. A fine piece of judicial activism here.

They used the “Separation of Powers” argument to usurp the will of the people as expressed through their legislature.

I like that he is already applying 3 names. I wonder if he’ll campaign on a “I’ll slash taxes like I slash hookers” motto. Of course he didn’t actually slash his hooker girlfriend, I guess, and he won’t slash taxes either but still. This story should be good for sh*ts and giggles for a while.

****
A pawnbroker and a hooker story make Illinois elections into a political tearjerker
John Kass

February 4, 2010
There’s nothing like all the love at those staged political unity gatherings, where candidates left standing try to convince the rest that they’re very much alive.

The Republicans insist they have a pulse in Illinois, so they had a unity breakfast on Wednesday after the primary elections. State Sens. Bill Brady and Kirk Dillard are separated by only a few hundred votes in their campaign for governor, and they’re lawyering up.

Illinois Democrats thought they were also alive, but a Tribune story that broke late Wednesday, about the mysterious Scott Lee Cohen, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor known as “the Pawnbroker,” might be a political body bag.

Tribune reporters David Heinzmann and Ray Long revealed details about Cohen’s 2005 domestic battery arrest in which Cohen’s then-girlfriend accused him of holding a knife to her throat. Court records show that the girlfriend was a prostitute.

Cohen is insisting it’s all lies, and that he didn’t know his live-in girlfriend was a hooker. She told him she worked as a “massage therapist,” the Pawnbroker’s spokesman said.

That explains everything.

Now Republicans will scour the state for the “massage therapist” who just may — based on Illinois’ recent history of governors not finishing their terms — end up as Illinois’ first lady. . . . .

Chicago Tribune

Adam Kinzinger (IL-11) for Congress.

Wednesday, February 3rd at 8:54AM EST

Now that the Illinois primary is over, we can show you the official GOP candidate for IL-11. Meet Adam Kinzinger:

(Donate to Adam Kinzinger here: he’s trying to raise 10K by 02/10/10.)

Adam’s a fiscal conservative, military veteran (Air NG, served overseas), and pro-life; his hobbies include toppling incumbents in elections, advocating smaller government, and subduing would-be knife-wielding maniacs with his bare hands. His opponent, Debbie Halvorson, is best known for folding like a cheap suit over cap-and-trade, then running and hiding over health care rationing like most of the rest of the supposedly ‘moderate’ Democrats in Red Districts. IL-11 is a R+1 district, so check Adam out.

Moe Lane–Redstate

McLean County Clerk: Kathy Michael up 6,351 votes with two precincts left
By Mary Ann Ford mford@pantagraph.com | Posted: Tuesday, February 2, 2010 9:10 pm

BLOOMINGTON — Kathy Michael, who focused her campaign on the high turnover rate and other problems in the McLean County Clerk’s office, won the Republican nomination for clerk in Tuesday’s primary, beating three opponents, including incumbent Peggy Ann Milton.

With two McLean County precincts yet to be counted, Michael had 6,351 votes to Milton’s 3,930. Michael McFarland was third with 1,563 votes and Geoffrey Tompkins rounded out the field with 1,264 votes.

No Democrats, Green Party or independent candidates filed for the office. If no Democrat or Green Party candidate is nominated by their parties, and if no independent files nominating petitions, Michael effectively has won the office. The general election is Nov. 2.

“I’m happy for all the hard work we did,” said Michael of 2018 Juniper Lane, Bloomington. “The voters made the decision.”

Michael, a Twin City political and business consultant, said she and her supporters knocked on more than 5,000 McLean County doors during the campaign.

“I’m a traditional grass-roots type of person,” she said. “I believe people like to hear from candidates.” . . . .

The Pantagraph