Have you seen the latest Joan Krupa ad? Krupa’s first four ads were positive, then she released a defensive ad in response to negative attacks from her opponent, Jehan Gordon. Now she’s taken all the negative things we know about Gordon and rolled them into one 30-second ad:
Ouch!
A press release from the State’s Attorney’s office via the Schock campaign:
NOTICE TO THE MEDIA
Last week our office was asked by a congressional candidate to review allegations that an opposing congressional candidate had notarized but wrongly or improperly dated a document in early 2000. Commendably, both candidates seem to agree that it would be best for any such review to be conducted and concluded as timely as possible. Accordingly, the State’s Attorney has asked me to conduct such a review and I have done so.
Any potential violation here under the Notary Public Act would be a misdemeanor called “official misconduct by a notary public”. This is not to be confused with the more common felony of Official Misconduct which involves criminal conduct during the performance of a duty in a public office (no such allegation of that has been made here).
One level of this type of misdemeanor requires the notary’s infraction to be “knowing and willful”. A lower level misdemeanor occurs if the notary’s infraction is merely “reckless or negligent”. No information is presented in this matter to show whether any of these descriptions occurred.
This area of law has its own section for extended limitations that somewhat lengthens the usual period that misdemeanors be filed within 18 months of their commission. However, under the most generous interpretation available, any such statute of limitations for filing an infraction on allegations such as these. would have expired approximately three years ago.
Therefore, this completes the review requested of our office.
Seth P. Uphoff
Assistant State’s Attorney
Case closed.
I reported recently on some historic preservation requests that are wending their way through the system. One of those is the AMVETS building, 237 NE Monroe. That building got some criticism in the comments section of my blog. And according to another reader who e-mailed me over the weekend, there’s an effort underway to kill the proposed historic designation without even so much as a hearing:
Dear Sir
I saw your article about preserving the AMVETS building and wanted to inform you of the following: This upcoming Wednesday the Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) will decide if the AMVETS application will receive a public hearing. I am afraid that they are being swayed, for the wrong reasons, to vote against a public hearing.
The building’s application, which can be obtained from the city, to make it historical was put together very well. There are nine criteria to make a building historic and only one of the nine needs to be met to make a designation. The application cites that the building meets 4 of the nine criteria and lists details why, providing pictures and proper research.
Key (although not all) members within the AMVETS do not want this to happen because they are in the process of trying to move the post location and a historic landmark of the building could prevent this. Certain AMVETS officers of the corporation are not sharing this information with the organization’s membership and lobbying the HPC to vote it down on Wednesday.
The point I am trying to make is that the Historic Preservation Commission has an obligation to permit a public hearing on applications that have merit. This building obviously has merit and deserves a public hearing. This will not guarantee the building is land-marked but will ensure its case is heard, as it should be. The buyer of AMVETS has made its intentions clear to eventual raze the building and it would be a shame to see a possible historic landmark torn down without a public hearing.
I request you make this known so that the commission feels pressure to do their job of ensuring applications get a fair public hearing. You may email me with questions and I understand if you do not want to get involved.
Thank you
A concerned citizen and veteran
I still haven’t seen the application, but it does seem reasonable to have a public hearing if the building indeed meets four of the nine criteria for historic designation. It’s not listed on the October agenda published on the city’s website, but this week’s “Issues Update” confirms, “The Historic Preservation Commission will be conducting a preliminary review of an application to Landmark property at 237 NE Monroe on October 22, 2008 instead of November 26, 2008.”
The Historic Preservation Commission meets at 8:30 a.m. this Wednesday.
We need to level the playing field and eliminate mandates, subsidies, tariffs and price supports that focus exclusively on corn-based ethanol and prevent the development of market-based solutions which would provide us with better options for our fuel needs.
—John McCain
Ever since I posted an article on ethanol, I was put on a pro-ethanol mailing list (Renewable Fuels Association). Recently, I received this press release:
Ethanol and renewable fuels have received attention in this year’s presidential debates and in the campaign. Specifically, the assertion has been made that one way to balance the federal budget and help solve the economic crisis is to eliminate the tax incentives that have helped to build America’s domestic renewable fuels industry. Such an assertion fails to account for ethanol’s role in reducing our dependence on imported oil, lowering gas prices at the pump, stimulating investment in rural America, creating millions of green jobs, and lowering federal farm program costs. The claim that cutting these programs will save taxpayer dollars is wrong. Federal incentives for ethanol generate revenue for federal and state governments and are saving American consumers money.
Below are just some of the economic benefits realized by an increasingly robust American ethanol industry:
- In 2007, the ethanol industry added nearly $48 billion to the nation’s GDP and generated $4.6 billion in federal tax revenues and nearly $3.6 billion in tax revenues for state and local governments.
- According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the increased demand for grain used in ethanol production reduced federal farm program costs by more than $6 billion.
- With clean burning ethanol blended into 70% of the nation’s gasoline, domestic ethanol production has reduced America’s dependence on foreign oil by over 400,000 barrels a day. Several independent analyses have recently concluded the use of ethanol in the U.S. is saving consumers between $0.25 and $0.50 a gallon.
- The production and use of 6.5 billion gallons of domestic ethanol in 2007 reduced oil imports by 228 million barrels, saving $16 billion of taxpayer dollars.
These increases in tax revenues and savings in federal program payments and oil imports totals more than $30 billion. That compares to the $3.4 billion that oil companies received for blending ethanol in 2007.
By a factor of nearly 10, the investment in America’s ethanol industry is producing economic and energy security benefits that are unmatched by any other renewable fuel technology today.
Some critics, on the other hand, don’t have a problem with ethanol getting some subsidies, but believe they have been over-subsidized:
Corn ethanol subsidies totaled $7.0 billion in 2006 for 4.9 billion gallons of ethanol. That’s $1.45 per gallon of ethanol (and $2.21 per gal of gas replaced).
Even with high gas prices in 2006, producing a gallon of ethanol cost 38¢ more than making gasoline with the same energy, so ethanol did need part of that subsidy. But what about the other $1.12. Not needed! So all of that became, $5.4 billion windfall of profits paid to real farmers, corporate farmers, and ethanol makers like multinational ADM.
Still others think ethanol should be dumped completely because it’s not the eco-friendly solution it purports to be:
Scientists now believe that the production of ethanol actually creates more harmful emissions than it prevents. Indeed, Princeton University professor Timothy Searchinger and other researchers have concluded that “corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20 percent savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years.” (Their findings were published earlier this year in Science magazine.) The reason is that converting undeveloped land to cropland—in order to grow more corn and facilitate biofuel production—releases a massive amount of carbon dioxide. Only if biofuels are made from waste products or grown on abandoned agricultural lands does the production process actually reduce GHG emissions.
It’s enough to make a midwesterner’s head spin. Good, bad, neutral — who knows for sure?