Posts Tagged ‘illinois
17
Aug
11
day three, illinois
Atkinson
Residents of Atkinson line up on Illinois Route 6 to show support for President Obama
President Obama jumps onto the stage prior to speaking at a town hall meeting, Aug. 17, at Wyffels Hybrids Inc., in Atkinson, Ill
****
Alpha
President Obama arrives to speak at a town hall style meeting at Country Corner Farm Market on August 17, in Alpha, Illinois
****
President Obama huddles with the Galesburg High School football team in Galesburg, Ill.
A girl on the Galesburg High School volleyball team reacts as she gets to meet President Barack Obama
***
President Obama waves as he boards Air Force One at the Air National Guard Base in Peoria, Ill., en route to Washington after his three-day economic bus tour
17
Aug
11
holy cow!
President Obama visits the Whiteside County Fair during livestock judging, Aug. 17, in Morrison, Ill.
President Barack Obama hugs Norma Haan, 68, at the Whiteside County Fair
17
Aug
11
today’s town halls
Live here (White House site)
17
Aug
11
‘a very presidential friendship’
2004
Pjstar: Forgive Tim and Diana Wheeler if they sometimes slip and refer to President Obama by his first name. After all, the Wheelers are quite possibly the only townsfolk in Alpha to know the leader of the free world on a first-name basis.
“Barack is coming to Alpha!” Tim Wheeler, 53, crowed with a chuckle Tuesday at Caterpillar Inc.’s Building HH, where he is a section manager.
Not that the Wheelers would be so informal Wednesday, when there’s a good chance - yet again - that they’ll get a few minutes to chat with their presidential pal. “We knew him before he was president,” Diane Wheeler, 50, said from Alpha. “We got in the habit of calling him by his first name. Out of respect, now it’s ‘Mister President.'”
Mind you, the Wheelers are no heavy-hitting politicos or deep-pocket contributors. They’re just workaday people who just happen to have the ear of the most powerful man on the planet. And when Obama saunters into the Country Corners Farm Market, the Wheelers stand the best chance of the Alpha’s 671 residents for a presidential one-on-one. It’s a special relationship, stretching from a hardscrabble farming burg to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. “We consider him a friend,” Diane Wheeler said.
The connection comes via son Marcus Wheeler, who in 2004 was a 19-year-old in dire need of a liver transplant. At the time, Tim Wheeler faced the loss of his 28-year job at Butler Manufacturing, which would leave Galesburg the next year. No job meant no insurance.
Meanwhile, Obama, then a state senator from Chicago, was campaigning for a U.S. Senate seat. On May 15 of that year, he made an unplanned stop at Galesburg’s Labor Temple, to talk with 25 local labor leaders. One was Wheeler, of United Steelworkers Local 2629.
When he got a chance with Obama, Wheeler sobbed as he told of his son’s need of a second transplant and expensive drugs. Obama promised to seek help via Medicare.
Two months later, die-hard Democrats Tim and Diana Wheeler flipped on their TV to see Obama address the Democratic National Convention, as John Kerry’s keynote speaker. A riveting speech bolstered his national gravitas, in part with the heartfelt plea, “We have more work to do. More work to do for the workers I met in Galesburg, Illinois, who are losing their union jobs. … More to do for the father that I met who was losing his job and choking back the tears, wondering how he would pay $4,500 a month for the drugs his son needs without the health benefits that he counted on.”
Stunned to tears, the Wheelers vowed to support Obama the next week at a Kewanee rally. Tim Wheeler approached Obama, who immediately said, “I want you to know: Every day I say a prayer for Marcus.” Thereafter, Obama would use the Wheeler story on the stump. Meanwhile, Tim Wheeler got a new job, at Cat, where insurance covered another two liver transplants for his son. In 2006, Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope” mentioned Galesburg several times, including the value of on-the-road encounters with people like the Wheelers: “Those were the stories you missed on a private jet at 40,000 feet.”
Later, they there were more meet-ups. When Marcus had treatment at the University of Chicago Hospitals, his dad met Michelle Obama in a hallway. She said her husband often prayed for the family. Later, as a U.S. senator, Obama gave a speech at the University of Illinois. Marcus Wheeler, en route to a bachelor’s degree in math, got a front-row seat. To start the speech, Obama mouthed, “Hi, Marcus.”
And in 2009, before Obama toured Cat here, Tim Wheeler was picked to join 200 workers to meet with Obama. Through the throng, the president summoned Wheeler for a few personal words for the first time since inauguration.
“How ya doing?” Wheeler asked.
“Oh,” Obama said with a grin, “I’ve been kinda busy these days.” ….
Full article here
Thank you LOL ;-)
09
Mar
11
history
Chicago Tribune: Gov. Pat Quinn today signed into law a historic ban on the death penalty in Illinois and commuted the sentences of 15 death row inmates to life without parole.
The governor said he followed his conscience. He said he believed in signing the bill he also should “abolish the death penalty for everyone,” including those already on death row.
“Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history,” Quinn told reporters afterward. “I think it’s the right, just thing to abolish the death penalty.”
More here
South Town Star (March 6): President Barack Obama has appeared to tip his hand on Illinois’ bill to end the death penalty, which Gov. Pat Quinn is expected to act upon within the week.
During a recent encounter with Quinn at the White House last week, the president praised the bill as well as Illinois’ legalization of civil unions, said state Sen. Kwame Raoul (D-Chicago), a lead legislative backer of the death penalty bill and Obama’s successor in the Illinois Senate…
Obama has publicly stated his support for the death penalty in heinous cases but as a state lawmaker voted against expanding it for crimes arising from gang activity. Obama was a driving force behind a 2003 capital punishment reform bill that required interrogations be videotaped in capital cases.
EJ Dionne: If you want to get national attention as a governor these days, don’t try to be innovative about solving the problems you were elected to deal with - in education, transportation and health care. No, if you want ink and television time, just cut and cut and cut some more.
Almost no one in the national media is noticing governors who say the reasonable thing: that state budget deficits, caused largely by drops in revenue in the economic downturn, can’t be solved by cuts or tax increases alone.
…The brave ones are governors such as Jerry Brown in California, Dan Malloy in Connecticut, Pat Quinn in Illinois, Mark Dayton in Minnesota and Neil Abercrombie in Hawaii. They are declaring that you have to cut programs, even when your own side likes them, and raise taxes, which nobody likes much at all. Rhode Island’s Lincoln Chafee has warned of possible tax increases too.
…Consider the new budget Gov. Scott Walker announced in Wisconsin on Tuesday. Among other things, he proposed cutting state aid to schools by $834 million over the next two years, a 7.9 percent reduction.
…what’s happening in so many places now is a reckless rush to gut the parts of government that all but the most extreme libertarians support - and that truly deserve to be seen (one thinks of education and programs for poor children) as investments in the future.
And those governors doing the hard work trying to balance cutbacks and tax increases get ignored, because there’s nothing sexy about being responsible.
Full article here
