February 2012 Meeting Notes

February 15, 2012 McHenry County Democratic Central Committee Meeting Minutes

Brian Meyers, Secretary

Attendance: 19 Central Committee Members, 13 visitors

Executive Board (who are also precinct representatives):  Bissett, chair; Melei, vice-chair; Meyers, secretary; Keller, district chair, Ewert, district chair, Bergan Schmidt, district chair, Erlenborn, district chair

Precinct Representatives: Maule, Yensen, Chirikos, Shepherdson, Jackson, Walker, Vandenboom, Quinn, Bartholmey, Bartman, Pignataro, Darger

Visitors: Ron Eck, Kate Tremont, Ida McNamara, Maureen Yates, Peter Yates, Leslie Coolidge, Kathy Kirchoff, Brittany Restrepo, Geoffrey Petzel, Regina Lombardo, Melanie Wesa, Dan Nagel, Barbara Anderson

Call to Order:  7:18 PM by chair Michael Bissett at McHenry County College

 

Read more

January 2011 meeting notes

 

January 18, 2012 McHenry County Democratic Central Committee Meeting Minutes

Brian Meyers, Secretary

Attendance: 19 Central Committee Members, 16 visitors

Executive Board (who are also precinct representatives):  Bissett, chair; Melei, vice-chair; Meyers, secretary; Keller, district chair, Ewert, district chair

Precinct Representatives: Murfin, Raven, Bartman, Vandenboom, Bergan Schmidt, N. Chirikos, Bartholomey, Quinn, Clement, Summers, D. Chirikos, Erlenborn, Walker, Heuser

Visitors:  Ron Eck, Ashley Beese, Brian McSherry, Linda McNeilly, John Hopp, Tom Vician, Jon Farnick, Vern Bauman, Judy Vandenboom, Jim Rauh, Kathy Kirchoff, Regina Lombardo, Barb Bovinet, Kim Hankins, Bob Jackson, Dennis Anderson

Call to Order:  7:17 PM by chair Michael Bissett at McHenry County College

 

Read more

November 2011 meeting notes

 

November 16, 2011 McHenry County Democratic Central Committee Meeting Minutes

Brian Meyers, Secretary

Attendance: 22 Central Committee Members, 11 visitors

Executive Board (who are also precinct representatives):  Bissett, chair; Melei, vice-chair; Meyers, secretary; Keller, District 2

Precinct Representatives: Bergan Schmidt, D. Chirikos, N.Chirikos, Darger, H. Hassinger, M. Hassinger, Kennedy, Mayo, McConville, McNamara, Murfin, Puchmelter, Raven, Swanson, Tremont, Waddell, Walker, Wisumierski

Visitors:  Leslie Coolidge, Chris Emmerich, Alex Finke, Sandy Hassinger, Bob Jackson, Lynn Krause, Michael Krause, Martha Pignataro, Jim Roden, Maureen Yates, Peter Yates

Call to Order:  7:15 PM by chair Michael Bissett at the Dole Mansion, Crystal Lake.

 

Read more

Protecting the vote

http://www.protectingthevote.org/

GOP Supercommittee Member Admits Bush Tax Cuts Didn’t Create Jobs, Can’t Explain Why

Republicans this week filibustered a Democratic plan to extend a soon-to-expire payroll tax cut, objecting to the fact that the extension was paid for by implementing a small surtax on income in excess of $1 million. To justify their objection to taxing the wealthy, Republicans have revived their false claim that taxing the rich amounts to taxing small business owners and job creators.

Bloomberg’s Al Hunt asked Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) — who represented the GOP on the fiscal supercommittee that failed to craft a deficit reduction package — to explain this viewpoint, considering that more jobs were created under the Clinton administration and its higher taxes on the rich than were created following the Bush tax cuts. Upton admitted that “I don’t know specifically the answer to that question,” nonsensically pointing to Friday’s jobs report instead of trying to argue the premise of Hunt’s question:

HUNT: Why under those pre-Bush tax cut tax rates did the economy do so well in the ‘90s? And why under the Bush tax rates, less for the wealthy, to do so poorly in this decade?

UPTON: Well, a couple things. One, spending went up, Al, the wars. I mean, that’s trillions of dollars. And also there was no change in the entitlements. And we also know -

HUNT: But that shouldn’t hurt the economy. That shouldn’t hurt economic growth.

UPTON: Yeah, but that impacts the debt and the deficit.

HUNT: But I’m asking, why did the economy grow a lot? Why were more jobs created in the previous decade under higher taxes than in this decade under lower taxes?

UPTON: I don’t know specifically the answer to that question. I can – I can maybe merit a guess. But, I mean, in large part is because our job – we lost jobs. I mean, look at the jobs report that came out this last week, three-hundred- some-thousand people actually stopped looking for jobs.

They are refighting the fights we thought we'd won.

GINGRICH CALLS CHILD LABOR LAWS ‘STUPID’, WANTS TO REPLACE JANITORS WITH POOR KIDS | In an anti-government diatribe that would be funny if he weren’t serious, GOP presidential candidate New Gingrich told a crowd at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government yesterday that child labor laws are “tragic” and “stupid” and have “done more to create income inequality in the United States than any other single policy.” In a proposal that he freely admitted was “extraordinarily radical,” he called for firing all school janitors and replacing them with poor students. Politico reports:

“This is something that no liberal wants to deal with,” Gingrich said. “Core policies of protecting unionization and bureaucratization against children in the poorest neighborhoods, crippling them by putting them in schools that fail has done more to create income inequality in the United States than any other single policy. It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which are truly stupid.” [...]

“Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”