McHenry County Blog

Joe Walsh was introduced by Phil Ponce like this: “And now to Carol Marin and a former congressman who is hard to ignore.”

Pretty amazing that a losing Congressional candidate would be interviewed by liberal commentator Carol Marin, but on Wednesday night, there was Joe Walsh, all alone, answering her questions on WTTW.

Under the posted interview is the following explanation:

“National star of the Republican Party, Joe Walsh, joins us to talk about the state of the GOP in Illinois, and what’s next on his agenda.”

Walsh was asked if he were running again for something.

“You wouldn’t deny that, would you?”

“Not at all,” Walsh replied in his calm TV manner.

“I don’t know if another run is in the cards. That’s in God’s hands.”

Marin interspersed comments by Walsh that made nightly news shows during the campaign.

Acknowledging the “gotcha” kind of politics we live in, Walsh replied by explaining that he had more constituent contact than any other congressman and it was impossible not to make mistakes here and there.

With regard to his lack of reaction to the attacks made on him with regard to abortion, he said that he should have pointed out that Tammy Duckworth favored using taxpayer dollars to finance abortions. [My disagreement with that approach has already been written.]

“We train our politicians to act like seals and not say anything to offend voters,” Walsh said.

Marin wanted to know if the Tea Party ship had sailed.

“Gosh, no,” Walsh replied, saying the size of government and the problem of piling debt on the back of our children was still a fervent issue.

He pointed out that Tea Party adherents came with views on social issues than spanned the spectrum, but pointed out that he was “Pro-Life without exception.”

How about the chance to be a radio talk show host on WIND syndicated by the Salem Radio Network?

“There’s an opportunity.”

“There are discussions.”

And what did he say about potential Republican gubernatorial opponents and other Republicans?

Joe Walsh

• Bill Brady – Shouldn’t run again. He’s run twice.
• Kirk Dillard – Nice man. He’s been down in Springfield forever.
• Dan Rutherford – Nice man. He’s been down in Springfield forever.
• Adan Kinzinger – You know what, not as conservative as people think, but a good congressman.
• Christine Radogno – Part of the problem. The face of the Republican Party along with Tom Cross, a Republican Party in Illinois, Carol, that has been devoid of any ideas. We haven’t stood for anything, which has enabled the Democrats to run the state into the ground.
• Judy Baar Topinka – Go to Florida and just retire and have a good life.
• Bruce Rauner – He’s a Democrat. Bruce Runner and again I know got gazillion dollars and he wants to run for governor as a Republican. He’s Rahm Emmanuel’s best friend. He’s given Democrats more money than he’s given Republicans. He gave Mike Madigan’s House candidates money. I just don’t think he’s a Republican.
• Peter Roskam – Great congressman
• Randy Hultgren – Nice man. Very good congressman.
• Mark Kirk – God, it was good to see him walk up those steps and I hope and sincerely hope and pray every day that he can stay where he is and do his job. (So you would support him?) Oh, gosh yeah. And, again, Carol, Mark Kirk and I are very different Republicans, but we’re still under that big tent.

I found out from Marathon Pundit.

Mark Kirk at the Lake in the Hills Parade in September, 2010.

With Kirk having walked two parades in McHenry County looking in the peak of health, this health issue is certainly shocking.

We wish him a speedy recovery.

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Randy Hultgren

Hultgren Statement On Senator Mark Kirk

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren (IL-14) released the following statement regarding news about Senator Mark Kirk’s hospitalization.

“My thoughts and prayers are with Senator Kirk and his loved ones.

“I hope that he makes a complete and speedy recovery and quickly returns to serving the people of Illinois.”

Joe Walsh

Rep. Walsh Statement on Senator Kirk

WASHINGTON- Congressman Joe Walsh (IL-8) released the following statement on Senator Mark Kirk’s recent hospitalization.

Walsh stated: “My thoughts and prayers are with Senator Kirk and his family during this time. I hope he makes complete, safe, and speedy recovery.”

Peter Roskam

Roskam Statement on Senator Kirk

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Peter Roskam (IL-06) issued the following statement about Senator Mark Kirk:

“I was disturbed to hear about Senator Kirk. Elizabeth and I have Mark and his family in our thoughts and prayers at this very difficult time. He’s a great friend, senator, and leader for Illinois. On behalf of the people of the Sixth District, we hope Senator Kirk enjoys a full and speedy recovery.”

February 18th is the McHenry County Republican Central Committee’s Lincoln Day Dinner.

There will be two speakers this year, Illinois Republican State Chairman Pat Brady and Congressman Randy Hultgren. There is a cryptic note at the bottom of the invitation in parentheses: “Congressman Hultgren is appearing at this even only as a guest.”

Last year the Keynote Speaker was U.S. Senator Mark Kirk.

Upset congressional victor Joe Walsh also took the podium in an unannounced appearance.

The cost this year is $100 a ticket, $175 for couples.

Republican Precinct get a cut rate, two plates for $150.

The event will be held at Crystal Lake’s D’Andrea’s Banquets, as it was last year.

It begins at 7 PM, but cocktails (you buy your own) will be served after 6.

If you don’t know much about Illinois GOP Chairman Pat Brady, here is his bio:

Pat Brady biography. Click to enlarge.

This is not a poll question.  If it were, we know there would be a low percentage thinking they were worth much.

This is a question of how much wealth those who represent us in Washington have.

There are six Congressmen for which McHenry County residents have present or potential future interest.

The Center for Responsive Politics, which operates Open Secrets Blog, has listed the net worth of all Congress folks.

The net worth of our two U.S. Senators, Dick Durbin and Mark Kirk, plus Congressmen Peter Roskam, Don Manzullo, Randy Hultgren and Joe Walsh’s reported figures are listed below:

I’ve not a clue what the numbers mean, but you can see we have a rich Democratic Party U.S. Senator in Dick Durbin and a way less wealth Republican U.S. Senator in Mark Kirk.

The two most veteran Congressmen–Don Manzullo and Peter Roskam–are the wealthiest.  Both are attorneys.  No outside jobs are allowed for Members of Congress, by the way, so they are not still practicing.

The poorest are the two running against each other in the new 14th Distrct.

You know their name–Randy Hultgren and Joe Walsh.

Hultgren appears marginally more well off than Walsh, whose child support issues have made front page and continuing news.

Both report maximum net worth in the $50,000 range.

A press release from Congressman Randy Hultgren:

Kirk, Lipinski, Hultgren Call for Extension of Surface Transportation Legislation

Longer-term bipartisan bill could mobilize $100 billion in new public-private partnerships

Chicago, IL – In a show of bipartisan, bi-cameral unity United States Senator Mark Kirk, Congressman Dan Lipinski (IL-3), and Congressman Randy Hultgren (IL-14) joined representatives from the Illinois Road Builders Association, Operating Engineers Local 150 and other transportation advocates in calling for Congress to extend the expiring Surface Transportation Act.

This legislation authorizes federal transportation projects across the nation, and allows the collection of revenues that fund infrastructure improvements. It was introduced in the House late Friday that would extend aviation programs through January and highway and transit programs through March.

If Congress does not adopt this act by September 30th, federal reimbursement of highway and transit projects will stop, with $100 million in funding lost each day.

Mark Kirk

“Congress should quickly approve this extension legislation to avoid a shutdown of the Highway Trust Fund,” said Kirk.

“We also support a longer-term solution by lifting federal barriers that could mobilize up to $100 billion for transportation private-public partnerships.”

“America is in a jobs crisis, and nothing creates jobs quickly and over the long term like investing in transportation,” Rep. Dan Lipinski said.

“It’s high time we passed a robust, multi-year transportation reauthorization. The last bill expired two years ago, and it’s simply absurd that Congress and the President haven’t acted. I’m glad to see there’s a transportation component to the President’s jobs plan, but it’s less than 15 percent of the total and that’s simply not enough. We need a reauthorization that enables major projects and increases, not cuts, funding levels. The bipartisan two-year bill recently proposed on the Senate side would be a good start. In the meantime, we need to make sure we avoid a shutdown of transportation programs like the one that disabled the FAA this summer.”

Randy Hultgren

“I’m optimistic that a bipartisan agreement can be reached on a serious, long-term investment in our nation’s infrastructure,” said US Rep. Randy Hultgren, a member of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee.

“But until that agreement can be reached, we should extend SAFETEA-LU before it expires which will help to address the high unemployment in the transportation trades putting thousands of Americans back to work.”

The House legislation, authored by Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-FL), would extend funding for surface transportation programs at Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 levels through March 31, 2011, and aviation programs through January 31, 2011. Congressional leaders reached the deal on Friday, but requires passage by both the House and the Senate.

As part of his efforts to find more private money for importing transportation projects, Senator Kirk today sent a letter to Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chairwoman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, and Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), Ranking Member on the Committee on Environment and Public Works, encouraging both the immediate extension of the legislation as passage of components of the Lincoln Legacy Infrastructure Development Act (S.1300) in a long-term transportation bill.

The Lincoln Legacy Act, which lifts barriers to private-public partnerships, could mobilize $100 billion in private investment to build new roads, airports, and railroads. Congressmen Hultgren and Lipinski, Illinois members of the House Transportation Committee, are collaborating on companion legislation in the House.

The event took place at the Wacker Drive reconstruction site. In 2005, Congress provided $25 million in federal funding for the project. Should a shutdown occur, $19 million of the unspent funds would be unable to be reimbursed.

Background on the Surface Transportation Act (SAFETEA-LU):

In 2005, Congress passed the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) – a six-year $286-billion transportation bill funding roads and transit projects.

In 2009, SAFETEA-LU expired, and since then Congress passed seven short-term extensions to keep infrastructure improvements moving forward. The current extension expires on September 30th, and with it the federal government’s ability to collect gasoline taxes and reimburse states for projects.

While granting extensions is routine, last month the Federal Aviation Administration was shuttered for several weeks as leaders in the House and Senate fought over language to extend the program. Approximately 4,000 federal employees were furloughed and $300 million was lost in aviation revenue.

But a highway program shutdown would be even more devastating. Should the program lapse, the federal government will lose $100 million a day. Illinois would see a halt in the flow of federal funds and 65,000 Illinois jobs could be at risk according the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Approximately 62 percent of IDOT’s construction program comes from the federal government.

Heritage Action for America, which I take to be the political action committee of the Heritage Foundation, has ranked Congressmen for the first time.

Below you see some for Illinois:

• 93% – Joe Walsh
• 81% – Don Manzullo
• 73% – Randy Hultgren
• 63% – Peter Roskam
• 61% – Mark Kirk

For the first time the Heritage Foundation has published a ranking of votes on issues it finds important.

Rankings of the other Illinois Members of Congress follow:

• 59% – Tim Johnson
• 54% – John Shimkus
• 54% – Aaron Schock
• 51% – Adam Kinzinger
• 53% – Bobby Schilling
• 44% – Judy Biggert
• 44% – Robert Dold
• 20% – Daniel Lipinski
• 18% – Jerry Costello
• 16% – Jan Schakowsky
• 11% – Jesse Jackson Jr.
• 10% – Mike Quigley
• 10% – Bobby Rush
• 7% – Danny Davis
• 7% – Luis Gutierrez
• 0% – Richard Durbin

Congressman Joe Walsh, Senator Mark Kirk and Congressman Robert Dold toured the Zion Nuclear Power Plant the day before Easter.

Last weekend three Members of Congress, U.S. Senator Mark Kirk and U.S. Representatives Joe Walsh and Robert Dold took a tour of the Zion Nuclear Plant.  (Today, Walsh will be at Woodstock’s Challenger Center holding a Town Hall Meeting starting at 1 and running until 2:30.)

Despite the fact that all sorts of nuclear waste is stored there, only Fox News seems to have noticed.

You may remember that the waste was destined to be taken to remote reaches of Nevada for safer storage.

The problem, of course, is that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reed is from Nevada.

Never let it be said that politics doesn’t trump logic.

The man missing from this picture is Harry Reed’s top assistant, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin.

I went to Durbin’s home page and found what you see below:

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin wants people to think he is on top of the nuclear power plant issue.

Next I went to the search engine on Durbin’s web site and typed in “Nevada.”
Take a look at what I found on the site of the Democratic Party senator who represents the state that gets more of its electricity from nuclear power plants than any other:

Nada. Nothing about the nuclear plant waste site in Nevada.

Bob Schlieffer and Joe Walsh

I didn’t see the whole show. In fact I missed U.S. Senator Mark Kirk completely on the Bob Schieffer-moderated Face the Nation.

But I did catch the end of the show when Congressman Joe Walsh was told by Schieffer that he was a “fav of the Tea Party Movements” and ask how the Republicans were treating him.

Walsh pointed out that the Tea Party movement is comprised not just of Republicans, but of Independents and Democrats. He listed a litany of words that characterized members of the movement, including “frustrated.”

Joe Walsh on Face the Nation

Then he said that he was being treated fine.

In much more eloquent words, of course.

Saturday, both Kirk and Walsh held a Town Hall Meeting at Christian Faith Fellowship Church in Zion.

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Here’s how Walsh described what happened:

“He asked me 2 questions, one about the debt ceiling and one about the influence of the tea party movement.

“On the debt ceiling I said

• we shouldn’t raise it,
• the administration is trying to scare the American people with it, and
• we need to do something historic as a prerequisite for raising it like the balanced budget amendment I’ve sponsored in the house.

“On the tea party movement, I said they’ve had great influence on the process, and defined who the tea party is.”

Joe Walsh

Mark Kirk

Two Illinois Congressman will be on the CBS program Face the Nation Easter morning.

In a line-up of five newly elected members of their respective houses, both U.S. Senator Mark Kirk and U.S. Representative Joe Walsh will appear on the program at 9:30 Central Daylight Time.

In addition, CBS says Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), and Rep. Tim Griffin (R-Ark.) will appear.  Read the background about the show here.

So, two liberal Republican U.S. Senators, one liberal Democratic Party U.S. Senator and two conservative members of the lower house.

When Bob Schieffer gets to fiscal matters, it will be interesting to see how fiscally conservative the two newly-elected GOP U.S. Senators will be.

Here’s is Walsh’s press release:

CONGRESSMAN WALSH TO APPEAR ON ‘FACE THE NATION’ TOMORROW ON CBS

This Sunday April 24th, Congressman Joe Walsh will be on ‘Face the Nation’ with Bob Schieffer on CBS.  The segment will air at 9:30 am central time.  The Congressman will discuss important issues facing the country and Congress today.

This press release explains the effort to keep Gitmo prisoners from being moved to the Thomson, Illinois, maximum security prison that Illinois hopes to sell to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The Washington representatives associated with it are U.S. Senator Mark Kirk and Congressmen Don Manzullo, Joe Wlash, John Shimkus, Joe Walsh, Aaron Schock, Peter Roskam, Judy Biggert, Randy Hultgren, Adam Kinzinger and Bobby Schilling.

Kirk, Manzullo, IL Colleagues Urge President Obama to
Abandon Efforts to Move Gitmo Detainees to NW Illinois

Firm commitment needed so Congress can focus on opening Thomson as a federal prison

Congressmen Joe Walsh and Don Manzullo, plus U.S. Senator Mark Kirk appeared at a Town Hall Meeting in Crystal Lake at McHenry County College.

[WASHINGTON] Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL), Congressman Don Manzullo (R-Egan), Joe Walsh (E-McHenry) and seven of their Illinois colleagues today called on President Barack Obama to heed the bipartisan calls from Congress and abandon efforts to move terrorist detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (Gitmo), or elsewhere abroad, to a vacant state-owned prison in northwest Illinois.

In a letter to the President sent this afternoon, the federal legislators said Congress will never provide funds to purchase the vacant Thomson Correctional Center and run it as a federal prison as long as the Obama Administration continues to express its desire to house the Gitmo detainees there. In addition to Kirk and Manzullo (who represents Thomson), the letter was signed by U.S. Reps. John Shimkus (R-Collinsville), Judy Biggert (R-Hinsdale), Peter Roskam (R-Wheaton), Aaron Schock (R-Peoria), Randy Hultgren (R-Winfield), Joe Walsh (R-McHenry), Adam Kinzinger (R-Manteno), and Bobby Schilling (R-Colona).

“The only way Congress will ever seriously consider approving funds to acquire and operate Thomson as a federal prison is if the Administration commits to backing off its plan once and for all to move Gitmo detainees to Thomson. We implore your Administration abandon its efforts to house Gitmo detainees at Thomson and join us in turning it into a maximum-security federal prison,” the letter states.

The vacant Thomson prison in Carroll County, IL could house up to 2,600 maximum security federal inmates with very little renovation at a great price to taxpayers. It would immediately help reduce the federal prison system’s 52 percent overcrowding problem in its maximum security division while providing much needed jobs and economic opportunities to the people of northwest Illinois.

The signed letter is attached and the text appears here.