Tag: Chicago

Train Chants Resuming

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Train Chants Resuming
Train Chants Resuming, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

Kinzie Street and Clinton.

View On Black

Yahoo Maps/Flickr lists this as being in Killgubbin, Chicago. There is an alternative spelling of Kilgubbin, which was also known as Little Hell. Used to be predominately Irish immigrants, many from the Irish town of Kilgubbin.

GapersBlock wrote about the area a few years ago;

So where do the Irish come in, and how did the name transfer?

In the mid-1840s a devastating blight struck the potato crops in Ireland, leaving hundreds of thousands hungry and penniless. Perry Duis writes in his book, Challenging Chicago, that, as a consequence of the famine, “three large landholders in Kilgubbin, County Cork, and County Mayo evicted their peasants and paid for their passage to America.” (93) These Irish peasants made their way to Chicago.

Jobs in Chicago in the late 1840s were scarce, and the Irish arrived with little money or resources. As a result, they became squatters, erecting a shantytown on unoccupied land just north of the river, near the site of the “original” Goose Island. When the Irish moved their settlement northwards to the present-day Goose Island, they took the island’s name with them.

Accounts from the period clearly state that the Irish settlers raised livestock on the island, including cows, chickens and pigs. Whether or not they actually raised geese in their backyards is a bit unclear, but that certainly became the popular story.

…

By the 1890s, Goose Island had developed an unsavory national reputation for its slums, crime and industrial pollution. In 1896, a news item in the New York Times about a fire at the American Varnish Works on the island described Goose Island as “a dilapidated locality.” Partly in an attempt to combat this image of the neighborhood, Chicago alderman considered making “Ogden’s Island” the official name in 1891, but the change apparently was never made. (Duis 107) Goose Island persists as the accepted name for the area.

In addition, the neighborhood has entertained many other nicknames throughout its early history. The Irish settlers gave the area the name “Kilgubbin” for the home they left in Ireland. In the 1860s, flames and smoke from the Peoples Gas coal plant on the island gave the neighborhood the name “Little Hell.” And, finally, the fumes from tugboats moored at the island in the early twentieth century gave one unfortunate area the name “Smokey Hollow.” (Duis 103)

[Click to continue reading Gapers Block: Airbags – Goose Island]


“Challenging Chicago: Coping with Everyday Life, 1837-1920” (Perry R. Duis)

Terrorism Theater Cost Chicago 2016 Bid

Seth Anderson0 comment

Nobody will exactly say this was the one thing, but it doesn’t surprise me one bit that the out-of-control US airline security theater was a large factor in the decision to award Rio with the 2016 Games.

Poor Boy Long Way from Home

Did Chicago lose the chance to host the 2016 Olympics because of airport security issues?

Among the toughest questions posed to the Chicago bid team this week in Copenhagen was one that raised the issue of what kind of welcome foreigners would get from airport officials when they arrived in this country to attend the Games. Syed Shahid Ali, an I.O.C. member from Pakistan, in the question-and-answer session following Chicago’s official presentation, pointed out that entering the United States can be “a rather harrowing experience.”

[Click to continue reading Chicago’s Loss: Is Passport Control to Blame? – In Transit Blog – NYTimes.com]

and some noticed:

Once the news came out that Chicago lost its Olympic bid, the U.S. Travel Association didn’t miss an opportunity to point that out, sending out a critical press release within hours.

“It’s clear the United States still has a lot of work to do to restore its place as a premier travel destination,” Roger Dow, U.S. Travel’s president, said in the statement released today. “When IOC members are commenting to our President that foreign visitors find traveling to the United States a ‘pretty harrowing experience,’ we need to take seriously the challenge of reforming our entry process to ensure there is a welcome mat to our friends around the world, even as we ensure a secure system.”

That might help, but a bigger problem is the Bush Administration’s ridiculous terrorism theater policies, still in place.

Robot City Workshop

swanksalot2 Comments
Robot City Workshop
Robot City Workshop, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

One of the cooler stores in Chicago, especially if you like robots and robot toys. The sales clerk said this is the only robot store in North America.

www.robotcityworkshop.com/homeframes.html

All I could do to restrain myself from purchasing vintage Heathkit electronics, but I did buy a couple items, including a robot for my nephew.
Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathkit

Maybe next time…

No knowledge of electronics was needed to assemble a Heathkit. The assembly process did not teach much about electronics, but provided a great deal of what could have been called “electronics literacy,” such as the ability to identify tube pin numbers or read a resistor color code. Many hobbyists began by assembling Heathkits, became familiar with the appearance of components like capacitors, transformers, and tubes, and were motivated to find out just what these components actually did. For those builders who had a deeper knowledge of electronics (or for those who wanted to be able to troubleshoot/repair the product in the future), the assembly manuals usually included a detailed “Theory of Operation” chapter, which explained the functioning of the kit’s circuitry, section by section. Heath developed a relationship with electronics correspondence schools (e.g., NRI). Heath supplied electronic kits to be assembled as part of courses, with the school basing its texts and lessons around the kit.

Reading Around on October 1st through October 2nd

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A few interesting links collected October 1st through October 2nd:

  • The Outfit: A Collective of Chicago Crime Writers: If You Wanna Win You Gotta Learn How to Play – The whole Olympics is going to be like this–a game in which Chicagoans will be made to feel like they should be emotionally invested when the real players will be behind the scenes: the guys with contracts waiting to be signed, and properties on the Olympic venue Monopoly board … Maybe the games will lose money on the whole, but some people, people on the inside, are going to make Benjamins by the bagful. These are the people who exaggerate the benefits, who make it sound like Chicago needs the Olympics more than the Olympics needs Chicago (a dubious claim if only because the IOC stands to make another half billion or so in television rights for summer games on US soil) so that you’ll support an endeavor that will line their pockets.

    One Billion Dollars

    One Billion Dollars

  • Senator Helped Mistress’s Husband, Raising Ethics Flags – NYTimes.com – A Republican Senator and an ethical scandal? What a a surprise!”The senator also put his chief of staff at the time, who had raised concerns that Mr. Hampton’s activities could violate the one-year ban on lobbying, in charge of dealing with him.”
  • whore.jpg
  • Michael Wolff on Rupert Murdoch | vanityfair.com – more than being about cost, [Rupert Murdoch’s] strategy is about pain. What he is always doing is demonstrating a level of strength and will and resolve against which the other guys, the weaker guys, cower. He can take more pain than anybody else. While others persist in the vanity of the Internet, he will endure the short- or medium-term pain necessary to build a profitable business.

Rio Wins 2016 Olympic Games

Seth Anderson1 Comment

I’m with Andrew Huff of GapersBlock1, the Olympics games were not going to be a panacea for all the problems Chicago faces.

Went to Brazil

Not everyone was displeased. “My hope is that we’ll get back to paying attention to the problems that are facing the city on an ongoing basis,” said Andrew Huff, editor and publisher of Gaper’s Block, an independent Web site that covers local Chicago news. “We can concentrate on 2009 and 2010 instead of 2016. There are so many things we should be paying attention to rather than whether we’re going to host an event in the future.”

[Click to continue reading Rio Wins 2016 Olympic Games – WSJ.com]

Eric Zorn and Dennis Byrne expressed similar sentiments: funnel all the cash that would have been spent preparing for a two week event seven years from now into lasting improvements for the city right now.

Now that the U.S. Olympic Committee has killed Chicago’s fledgling bid for the 2016 Summer games, we’re free from all the fuss, headaches and financial risks of that event.

While Los Angeles stews and spends for the next 30 months until the International Olympic Committee choose a host city, Chicago can get on with the business of building and improving this region for people who live here rather than in preparation for a momentary burst of tourists, athletes and reporters nine summers from now.

an insider wrote into Talking Points Memo, one possible reason for Chicago not being chosen, the bad reputation the US Immigration policies have:

Id prefer to not have my name published if you post any of this, but I wanted to give you some inside perspective on the Olympic planning as I had the privilege to work and help with some of the architecture and planning proposal for Chicago’s Bid.
Mainly, this is just an email to say that regardless of the headline on Drudge, and your comment that the IOC might not enjoy being “big-footed” by Obama, that is not the case. In fact, it was probably helpful, even though we were voted out in the first round. Almost every other country has their leader making personal appearances in support of major international architecture and planning endeavors, but the American president. There have been a number of projects, New Mariinsky Theater in St Petersberg, Russia (for example), where all the finalists, were supported by the leader of their country in having a call placed to the committee, however, the US architect/planner never receives that level of support or interest from the President. So it can only be refreshing to have the President support its country in these types of selections.

A few months ago, (getting back to the Olympic selection) it was made clear to us that Chicago was going to have some difficulty in gaining the selection for a number of reasons including that we have had a large percentage of games hosted here, but most importantly, that we do not have the best international reputation at this time, and it is well known that it is a frustrating and difficult process compared to the other host countries for travelers to gain admittance into the US. There was not a lot that could be done with our planning about this, but it was still brought up as an unofficial “official” concern of the IOC. I think Obama’s visit was prob in some effort to help remove this concern from the selection committee. I would say from knowledge of work on this bid, as well as having produced work to assist with London’s planning effort for Foreign Office Architects in London (before starting my own practice in Chicago) that there was little chance that the decision would be able to be changed this late in the game, and that at this point (the last week), most of the IOC already knows their rankings, and are just discussing the top two. So, again, regardless of Obama’s influence (or lack of), at best, all he would have been able to do was help push over the top, or slightly hurt, but not much more. The decision was most likely already made that Chicago would not host it a few weeks ago by the IOC.

[Click to continue reading Not Their Kinda Town | Talking Points Memo]

Chicago 2016 Olympic

I hope Rio has a great Olympic games, I’ve always wanted to visit there actually.

Footnotes:
  1. notice a link to them over on my sidebar? [↩]

Reading Around on September 30th

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Some additional reading September 30th from 10:40 to 12:32:

  • Roger Ebert’s Journal: My Life and Times Archives – Roger Ebert is becoming more and more endearing to me1. A 21st CE man of the people… “One of my favoring pastimes, especially when I should be doing something else, is moseying around the blogs of my readers”

    I’ve never left a comment there, by the way, and probably wouldn’t – I tend to write responses to other’s posts in this space instead.

    MN King Corn.jpg

  • Total Dick-Head: The Church of Latter Day Dicks – “Why then, is the only going science-fiction author cult of personality devoted to — of all people — L Ron Hubbard?! If Scientology were pretty much exactly the same but centered around Philip K Dick, my god — I’d want in, for his secret scriptures! The lectures on cosmogony! The resonant gnostic insights that made PKD’s work so mythic!”
  • http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4509&print=1 – Specifically, the Global Cities Index ranks cities’ metro areas according to 24 metrics across five dimensions. The first is business activity: including the value of its capital markets, the number of Fortune Global 500 firms headquartered there, and the volume of the goods that pass through the city. The second dimension measures human capital, or how well the city acts as a magnet for diverse groups of people and talent. This includes the size of a city’s immigrant population, the number of international schools, and the percentage of residents with university degrees. The third dimension is information exchange—how well news and information is dispersed about and to the rest of the world. The number of international news bureaus, the amount of international news in the leading local papers, and the number of broadband subscribers round out that dimension.
  • skinless weiners.jpg
Footnotes:
  1. if that’s the right word to use [↩]

The Times Plans Local Edition in Chicago, SF

swanksalot0 comment

Interesting

Three Is the Magic Number
[Three Is the Magic Number]

The New York Times is making plans for editions of the paper tailored to the Chicago area and other metropolitan markets, in addition to the San Francisco edition it plans to launch this fall.

“We’re in conversations with potential news providers in Chicago about adding local content to The Times,” said Diane C. McNulty, a spokeswoman for The Times. “Our intent is to roll out these expanded reports in several key markets around the country, with Chicago following San Francisco. The details are still being discussed. The idea is to provide additional quality local content for our readers.”

Plans for the San Francisco edition call for adding to the paper, twice a week, two additional pages of news about northern California. At first, the added content will be produced by The Times’ own writers and editors. But eventually, the plan, as in Chicago, is to turn the production over to a local partner.

[From The Times Plans Local Edition in Chicago, Too, and Other Markets – Media Decoder Blog – NYTimes.com]

Speaking for myself, I’d probably enhance my NYT subscription to include weekdays when this happens1. The Chicago Tribune has shrunk its news hole so drastically that reading the entire front section takes about 9 minutes, on a good day. Some days there are about 150 words of interest to me in the whole paper. Chicago sports is still multiple pages, of course, but who gives a rats ass about the Bears or the Cubs? Not I. There are much better sports writers on the web anyway, especially for the one sport I follow2. The Tribune brain-trust has decided that the only way for profitability is to fire/retire all of the actual reporters, and make the paper easier to browse while sitting on the bus. Shorter stories, more pictures, more entertainment news. Bleh. The New York Times, on the other hand, is still filled with words in complex sentences, and not just pretty3 graphics. I may disagree with the NYT on various topics, but it is the best newspaper now being published.

Will be very interested to see how this shakes out. Will the Tribune counter this incursion by increasing their news collection? Or just continue fading into irrelevance? My subscription to the Tribune lapsed last week, and I struggled with the decision to renew it or not. I decided I would give them one more year to figure out their audience, so we’ll see.

Newspapers should focus on what they do best: collecting & analyzing data about our society and world, and stop tarting themselves up to attract 19 year old boys who can’t read anyway.

Footnotes:
  1. currently I only get the Saturday/Sunday package [↩]
  2. The NBA if you’ve forgotten [↩]
  3. vacant – oh private joke [↩]

Mayor Daley Places Olympian Bet on Chicago 2016

Seth Anderson2 Comments

Mayor Daley has famously only lost four votes in the City Hall rubber-stamp room called the City Council, but the residents of Chicago are less sanguine about the economic benefits of hosting the Olympics.

Heart versus Head

The Second City is weary after months of recession and Illinois corruption scandals, and angry about everything from rising taxes to deepening potholes. The city is especially skeptical of Mr. Daley’s Olympic push: After pledging Chicago wouldn’t pay a cent should the Games lose money, the mayor later said Chicago would cover any potential shortfall.

Mr. Daley, re-elected in 2007 with more than 71% of the vote, now has a career-low approval rating of 35%, according to a recent Chicago Tribune poll. In public meetings, citizens rail that he has become isolated, thin-skinned and autocratic. Only 47% of Chicagoans support hosting the Games.

Mr. Daley, asked about his falling approval ratings and concerns over cost overruns and corruption, shakes his head.

“You have to have vision,” the 67-year-old mayor said in an interview this month as he shuttled between appearances in the back seat of his black sedan. “You can’t start second-guessing yourself.”

Mr. Daley says the Games will transform Chicago and update its international image from a meat-and-manufacturing hub to the Paris on the Prairie its planners envisioned. Chicago’s Olympic committee has said the Games will generate tens of thousands of jobs and a $13.7 billion economic boost for Chicago. Last week, Anderson Economic Group LLC estimated that spending in Chicago would be more modest, around $4.4 billion.

University of Chicago sports economist Allen Sanderson is more skeptical still. “When you say the word ‘billions,’ special-interest groups start salivating,” he said. “This is Chicago, so yeah, I expect some cost overruns.”

[Click to continue reading Mayor Places Olympian Bet on Chicago’s Bid for Games – WSJ.com]

The Olympics last for what, two weeks? But preparation has to start seven years in advance? Yikes.

Apparently, Chicago has integrated without much notice:

As other Midwestern cities emptied, Chicago grew. In the past 10 years, it added parks and trees, luxury residential skyscrapers and 36 million square feet of commercial development — nearly twice as much as Los Angeles. Between 1989 and 2008, Chicago’s median household income rose 2.7%, in 2008 dollars. Over the same period, incomes in Rust Belt cities Detroit, Cleveland and Indianapolis shrunk 11% or more.

By 2008, Chicago had become the eighth-most integrated global city in the world, according to Foreign Policy magazine, behind Singapore and ahead of Seoul.

Mind Detergent

And Obama is going to personally persuade IOC officials in Copenhagen after all, for some reason.

Less than two weeks ago, President Obama lamented that he was too busy to go to Denmark to lobby for Chicago’s bid to host the Olympics. “I would make the case in Copenhagen personally,” he said, “if I weren’t so firmly committed to making real the promise of quality, affordable health care for every American.”

Evidently, his commitment to health care is no longer quite so time consuming. Mr. Obama announced Monday that he would fly to Copenhagen this week after all to lobby the International Olympic Committee for the 2016 Summer Games.

Mr. Obama changed his mind and decided to take a gamble no other American president has taken at the urging of his close friend and senior adviser, Valerie Jarrett, who has been deeply involved in promoting Chicago’s bid. He hopes to trump the presence in Copenhagen of his counterparts from rival countries seeking the games — Brazil, Japan and Spain — and duplicate the success that Tony Blair of Britain and Vladimir V. Putin of Russia have had in recent years by personally lobbying for their nations’ bids.

…

Moreover, aides noted that it would be a relatively small time investment. Mr. Obama will leave Thursday evening and fly overnight, arriving in Copenhagen just in time to join Chicago’s final presentation Friday morning, when he and the first lady will address the committee. He returns to Washington on Friday afternoon.

[Click to continue reading White House Memo – In Pitch for Games, a Gamble for Obama – NYTimes.com]

I don’t buy the argument that the President can only perform one task in a day. Maybe GWB was limited that way, but most modern politicians are adept enough to chew gum and walk at the same time. Still, I question whether the Olympic Games are worth wasting a President’s limited agenda upon.

Click here for some other posts discussing the 2016 games

Reading Around on September 29th

swanksalot0 comment

Some additional reading September 29th from 11:32 to 20:54:

Exelon Quits Chamber of Commerce

Seth Anderson1 Comment

This might be the first time I’m writing about Exelon doing something positive for the world, namely, publicly quitting the head-in-the-sand U.S. Chamber of Commerce because of the Chamber of Commerce’s position regarding climate change. Kudos to Exelon for being citizens of the 21st Century!

Exelon CEO John Rowe announced that his company — the largest electric utility company in the United States — would not renew its membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because of its opposition to global warming action. In his keynote address to the annual conference of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), the nation’s largest association of energy efficiency experts, Rowe said that the Chamber’s multi-million-dollar campaign against clean energy legislation is incompatible with Exelon’s commitment to climate change leadership. As Rowe said when he accepted a leadership award from the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce in 2008:

Exelon has staked out an industry-leading position on the issue of climate change and, in the spirit of Daniel Burnham, we have launched our own “not so little plan” to eliminate the equivalent of our entire carbon footprint by the year 2020. I do not know if it will stir men’s souls, but I hope it will stir policymakers and others in our industry to action.

Confirming Exelon’s decision to ThinkProgress, a spokesperson explained that “Exelon is a big supporter of climate legislation.” Exelon is the third energy company to sever ties with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the past week, joining Pacific Gas & Electric and PNM Resources.

[Click to continue reading Wonk Room » Exelon Ditches U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Over Climate Denial ]

Of course, the G-20 is only taking tepid moves, so no energy company is going to lose much by siding with the forces of science and progress, but that’s a discussion for another time.

Shine Your Lights For Me – HP5 Plus 400

swanksalot0 comment

I’m guessing the Pittsburgh Steelers on their way to O’Hare, as time was right. Three buses plus police escort heading towards the Interstate.

Could have been something else though.

View On Black

on the corner of Canal Street and Randolph

Reading Around on September 18th through September 21st

swanksalot0 comment

A few interesting links collected September 18th through September 21st:

  • Back Issues : The New Yorker –

    “Today we launch Back Issues, formerly a department in our News Desk blog, as its own blog on newyorker.com. In the coming weeks and months, we’ll use this space to delve through more than eighty years of New Yorker history, with an eye to relating that history to the happenings of the day. Our chief goal will be to make this vast resource approachable and useful to our readers.”

    maybe its just my inner historian, but I love looking at news coverage from years before I was born

    Melrose Park Speakeasy.jpg

  • Chicagoans for Rio 2016 – It would be exciting to host the Olympics here in Chicago. But you know what would be even better? Rio De Janeiro. Just let Rio host the 2016 Olympics. We don’t mind. Honest.
  • In defense of ACORN | Salon –

    To claim that the stupid behavior of a half-dozen employees should discredit a national group with offices in more than 75 cities staffed by many thousands of employees and volunteers is like saying that Mark Sanford or John Ensign have discredited every Republican governor or senator. Indeed, the indignation of the congressional Republicans screaming about ACORN and the phony streetwalker is diluted by the presence of at least two confirmed prostitution clients — Rep. Ken Calvert and Sen. David Vitter — in their midst. Neither of those right-wing johns has been even mildly chastised by their moralistic peers. Nobody is cutting off their federal funding.

    Indeed.

  • suburban romps.jpg
  • freedarko.com: A Significant Bullet – From the press kit for Herzog’s new film Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans: “I call upon the theoreticians of cinema to go after this one. Go for it, losers.”

Michael Moore, Capitalism’s Little Tramp

Seth Anderson1 Comment


“Slacker Uprising” (Michael Moore)

Despite his films’ faults, I still enjoy Michael Moore’s movies. Am looking forward to seeing his latest.

Bruce Headlam pens a back-handed review, full of constructions like:

In the United States Mr. Moore’s conservative critics may decry his popularity, but his films and best-selling books are far more popular outside the country, especially in Britain, elsewhere in Europe and in Japan. In such places Mr. Moore has become a kind of anti-cultural ambassador — the prism through which a large part of the world views the United States.

But a film that flatly concludes that capitalism is evil is certain to put him at odds with most of the left wing in his own country, and even with President Obama, who gave a speech the next day on Wall Street on the need to reregulate, not replace the financial industry.

[Click to continue reading Film – Michael Moore, Capitalism’s Little Tramp – NYTimes.com]

Really? Most of the left wing is on the side of the bankers? And your evidence is? Have you ever actually talked to someone who calls themselves a Liberal, outside of your normal circles?

Anyway, the Liberal typing up this blog concurs with Mr. Moore: Capitalism unchecked is a beast that destroys us and our planet. Of course it also enables us to have a luxurious lifestyle, but criticism of an ideology is not the same as a hatred. Just ask the workers of the Republic Window company who held a sit-in not too long ago.

There are fewer of the trademark Moore stunts in “Capitalism,” a sprawling 126-minute film that tries to connect data points across the economy, including the bailout, financial deregulation, privatized juvenile detention centers, the collapse of the American auto business (again), “dead peasant” insurance policies, Goldman Sachs’s influence in Washington, the crash of a commuter jet in Buffalo, the Florida condo market and an old-fashioned sit-in at a Chicago door-and-window factory.

In part the stunts are harder to pull off for a famous, rabble-rousing filmmaker. But at the movie’s heart is the original footage Mr. Moore’s shooters made of workers inside the occupied factory in Chicago (his was the only crew let in during the five-day strike) and of homeowners being evicted. Mr. Moore retains an ear for ordinary speech that is uninflected by the exigencies of morning talk shows or “SportsCenter” clichés.

because, as the Chicago Tribune noted, unchecked capitalism encourages greed, and theft:

After Republic Windows and Doors abruptly shuttered its North Side plant last winter, some of the 200 union workers who lost their jobs peacefully refused to leave for several days, demanding wages they’d earned and becoming a national symbol of the economic crisis.

On Thursday Cook County prosecutors made a startling allegation: The sudden plant closing was all part of a monthslong plot by the head of Republic Windows to loot the business, steal key manufacturing equipment and set up a new operation in Iowa.

After a judge hit former chief executive officer Richard Gillman with a whopping $10 million bail, he was led away to Cook County Jail while wearing a pin-striped suit, white collared-shirt and a dazed expression.

Prosecutors laid out their case in an unusually detailed 56-page filing. Gillman and two other undisclosed executives abandoned Republic Windows’ crushing debt, stole its assets and secretly trucked the equipment from the plant to the new operation in Red Oak, Iowa, the charges alleged.

But that operation failed, too, just a month and a half after it started, leaving hundreds of employees from both Chicago and Iowa out of work and devastated.

All told, Gillman and the others defrauded company creditors who were owed at least $10 million and stole more than $200,000 cash from Republic Windows, prosecutors alleged.

[Click to continue reading Republic Windows CEO charged in plot to loot the company — chicagotribune.com]

Strong Public Option and Weak Democrats

Seth Anderson0 comment

The Public Option and the Democratic members of the House who don’t support it, even in Congressional Districts that are “safe”:

There are 65 Democratic members of the House who have said that they will vote against any bill that does not have a public option. But there are 55 more Democrats in districts that have a 10 point Democratic advantage or more. What about them?

Over the past two weeks, readers narrowed the field to the 11 members they thought should be insisting on the inclusion of a public option in any health care bill, but aren’t. They are saying one thing and doing another. Do their lobbyist contributors have anything to do with it? Over three days, our community will take a look at those conflicts and vote on the these members to see who moves to the next round.

[Click to continue reading action.firedoglake.com | Vote For Member Who Just Won’t “Walk the Talk”]

Beer Money at the MCA

Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake sent me an email about Rep Danny Moonie-Lover Davis that reads, in part:

your member of Congress has been voted as one of the top 11 people who should insist on a public option, but has so far refused to do so.

Why are they are saying one thing and doing another? Do their lobbyist contributors have anything to do with it? Why won’t they do what’s right for their district – and their country – and hold the line on a public option?

As a constituent of these members, I need you to call their offices and ask why they won’t hold the line on a public option without triggers or co-ops.

Here are the first members up, including yours. Can you call your Representative’s office now?

Mike Thompson (CA-01)
DC: (202) 225-3311
Napa: (707) 226-9898

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (FL-20)
DC: (202) 225-7931
Pembroke Pines: (954) 437-3936
Aventura: (305) 936-5724

Danny Davis (IL-07)
DC: (202) 225-5006
Chicago: (773) 533-7520
Broadview: (708) 345-6857

When you call, be sure to say your city and state, and that you see no reason why your member shouldn’t commit to a public option. State that they represent a safe district, and they owe it to their constituents to hold the line on a strong public option without co-ops or triggers.

It’s not enough for the member to just say they support a public option – you have to ask them if they’ll commit to hold the line and not vote for anything but a strong public option.

Your member of Congress lives in a safe Democratic seat. This should be a no-brainer: a strong public option is something 77% of Americans want, but your member refuses to hold the line. What gives?

Can you call your member of Congress? It’s really important that your representative hears from you about a strong public option.

BlueCross
[BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois HQ]

More on Danny Moonie-Lover Davis:

Danny Davis: Davis was elected to Congress in 1997 and the district has a D+18 PVI. A cosponsor of H.R. 676, he is also the CBC’s Health and Wellness Task Force. He is a signatory to a letter to President Obama dated September 3, stressing the need for”a strong public health option that will allow the nation’s more than 46 million uninsured Americans more than half of whom are people of color to finally have access to affordable, meaningful health care coverage no later than 2013.”

How hard will he fight for what he believes in? Well, apparently not at all. The letter doesn’t mention what he said at an August 6 DFA meeting:

Davis said that he told the members of the Progressive Caucus that, “President Obama lives too close and is too popular [for Davis to vote against Obama’s bill].” He then said he hopes the President “sticks to his guns.”

Davis has taken $33,000 from health care interests this cycle, including PAC donations from AHIP, The American Hospital Association, Amgen, Baxter Healthcare and Blue Cross Blue Shield. If he winds up casting a vote that gives them everything they want, he apparently plans to hide behind the President.

[Click to continue reading Campaign Silo » Contest Semifinals: Vote for Member Who Just Won’t “Walk the Talk”]