Dan Seals Still Doesn't Get It?

My opponent, Dan Seals has run for congress in the Illinois 10th once already but he continues to show that he doesn't understand the district. That is no surprise, the man has never lived in the 10th district. He has also shown that he may not be up to speed on American politics. According to 10th district blogger TA at Team America's Tenth District Blog, Mr. Seals has been sending out e-mails decrying the use of earmarks in the latest budget passed by the House. Somebody should probably tell Mr. Seals that the Republican Party is no longer running the US House of Representatives, that of course means that Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) is not in a leadership position that could put a stop to earmark abuse. The use of earmarks was a Democratic strategic argument during the last election, the one that Mr. Seals lost. Thus it is more than a little strange that he would try that strategy again, especially when the Democratic Party leaders are to blame for any earmarks in this budget. Mr. Seals is running as a Democrat.

It is noticeable that the earmark system has become much more opaque since the Democratic takeover of Congress just 12 months ago. Many of the commenters at Team America's Tenth... have taken Mr. Seals to task for stating that he would have voted against the earmarks that represent needed projects for the Tenth District. But seriously folks, why the heck should Dan Seals care? He lives in Janice Schakowsky's district.

TA rightly recalls that Rep. Kirk helped to kill the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" that Flying Debris commented on here after finding that Dan Seals' biggest supporter, Ellen Beth Gill of Ellen's Tenth District Blog had taken Rep. Kirk to task for cutting off that pork-barrel project in an inane post titled "Imagine No Way to Get to O'Hare". Because Ms. Gill was so confused about O'Hare, Flying Debris wrote the following in order to help Ms. Gill understand the Chicago are economy:

As a friendly note to Ms. Gill; O'Hare is a serious piece of infrastructure that affects millions of people in the tri-state area and around the nation; and I'm not even talking about the air travelers. To see an example of O'Hare's importance to the non-traveler Ms. Gill and her cohorts may want to take a drive along the southern boundary of O'Hare Airport. Drive down Irving Park Road west of Narraganset and take a look (to the north) at the traffic coming out of the O'Hare shipping terminal. For some further education they should trail some of those trucks that leave O'Hare and follow them down to the Joliet area, a booming trans-shipment are for the entire Midwest. It could be an educational field trip of sorts. Then they could try the same exercise in Ketchikan, the amount of industry that is reliant on air transport is underwhelming and it is hard to imagine the industry that would rush to take advantage of easier access to the Ketchikam airport other than tourism. I guess that somebody has to stick up for the wealthy fishermen of the 10th district and their desire to catch (non Lake Michigan) salmon and Ms. Gill fits the bill.

10th District Democrat Let Fingers Do Walking on Fraudulent Petitions

The good folks working with TA up at the Team America's Tenth District Blog earlier uncovered numerous dead signatories to the nominating petitions of Illinois State Senator Terry Link, the Chairman of the Democratic Party of Lake County, Illinois. Well they have outdone themselves with their investigation of Mr. Link's petitions by noticing that the names were apparently copied out of the phone book and the signatures allegedly forged. It was not immediately noticeable due to the fact that the petitions show the first name first, however they have compiled a long list of pages that list the last names alphabetically or in reverse-alphabetical order (TA charitably calls the later "sneaky"). They have found people with only a first initial listed in the phone book who's petition entry contains only the same first initial, TA's group contacted some of them who claimed to never sign anything with just the first initial. They found other instances in which those telephone customers were listed on the nominating petition with incorrect names that start with the correct initial. In spite of all of that I have to agree with TA that the following pretty much closes the deal:


Aritha Walker (sheet 41, line 23) is listed as living at 245 Jackson, in North Chicago. Aritha lives on Jackson, but at a different street number. "245" is April Walker's house number at a completely different street in Mundelein. April Walker is the entry in the phone book immediately above Aritha Walker.


All of us who appreciate honest elections and honest campaigning owe a thanks to TA and his mystery sleuths. Considering all of the talk I hear from the Obama campaign on new ways to "do" politics I'm sure that former Illinois State Senator Barack Obama would also appreciate their work.

The Fun I Missed!

A few weeks later the blogger gets back to the keyboard! My excuses? Many. I started out preparing for an hour-long final show on the Main Stage at Second City Chicago after spending a year at the Second City Training Center's year-long Improv Program. In addition to that show and watching the pathetic Chicago Cubs during their post-season swoon I had a guest in town. An old girlfriend came to Chicago and stayed with me for a week. She lives outside of Boulder, Co., so as you the reader can only imagine we approach the world very differently. That's the beauty of America, a neo-con and a neo-hippy can be best of friends and actually talk about our world. However a few more weeks out of the mountains could actually be therapeutic for her.

While I was otherwise busy some of the usual nonsense of the blog world continued, including the fact that Ellen Beth Gill, the lawyer who writes Ellen's Illinois Tenth Congressional District (blah, blah, blah) Blog (Flying Debris discussed her blog here and here) has banned comments from those pesky people who disagree with her and her fellow North Shore Democrats. I was given the heads-up on the issue by Team America, an occasional commenter here and a regular commenter over at Ellen's place, he has been banned and low and behold, so had your humble correspondent. Well Team America has decided not to take this affront laying down and he has started Team America's Tenth District Blog. From what I could discern from his comments and the first few posts he is a sharp and sharp witted Republican lawyer from Lake County, IL. What is it with all of those legal bloggers anyways?

As a self described moderate Republican I would expect Team America to cover the upcoming campaign of my childhood friend Rep. Mark Kirk (IL-10), a Republican moderate who has flown missions over Iraq as a Reservist while serving in Congress. Mark's last opponent Dan Seals, the son of Bear great and former Board of Trade member George Seals has been running again since last June, Mr. Seals has been running for office rather than working for a few years now. His father George Seals is a great guy, when I was just starting out on the floor of the Board of Trade I darted out of a pit into an aisle right as George Seals, the former Bear offensive guard was running to the soybean pit (it was less than a minute before the markets opened), those who know me in person also know that even as a young man I was going to lose to the former Bear. I picked myself up and went on to do whatever I was in such a hurry to do, Mr. Seals never broke stride. I knew that I was in the wrong, I didn't look when I jumped out of the pit but George Seals later came over to apologize and make sure that I was in one piece (I told him that it was my fault and that although I ached a little bit it was a real experience to be run over by a Bear), he is one of those real class acts. I hope that his son follows his father's lead this time around as far as his campaign goes, last year's version was not exactly a high point for the Democratic Party.