Progress Illinois

The full extent of the damage caused by levee failures in southeastern Illinois is still unknown. Meanwhile, forecasters are expecting more heavy rains over the weekend. If you're outside of the flood zones and wondering what you can do, here are two ideas:

1) Send a check to the Wabash Valley Flood Relief Fund. The organization was brought to our attention by Capitol Fax yesterday and looks like a good way to make an immediate impact:

Wabash Valley Flood Relief Fund
c/o Farmers & Merchants Bank of Hutsonville
P.O. Box 277
Hutsonville, IL 62443

2) Consider donating blood. The Rockford Register-Star is reporting that blood drives throughout the Midwest have been canceled due to flooding. Hospitals in the region are getting less donor blood just when they may need more to help the injured. The Register-Star suggests that readers call 1-800-448-3543 or visit givebloodgivelife.org to make an appointment.

Politico's Ben Smith is reporting that, as part of the effort to integrate the Democratic National Committee with the Obama campaign, large parts of the DNC will be relocating from Washington D.C. to Chicago. It's a new way of doing things and Smith surmises that it could yield some real benefits:

The move reflects Obama's desire to maintain an unusually streamlined campaign, as well as his swift and complete takeover of a Democratic Party that isn't always known for its unity. The move may also save the campaign money, as the Obama campaign can use DNC salaries and staff to pay for elements of its organizing campaign and avoid some of the duplication that has often dogged presidential efforts.

Writing that "the power will clearly be shifting to a centralized Chicago hub," Smith also reports that many of the staffers employed by the DNC's 50 State Program in battleground states will shift over to the Obama campaign.

The "Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq" is a well thought-out and carefully articulated proposal to disengage the U.S. military from the conflict and refocus on diplomatic and humanitarian efforts. The plan has the backing of over 50 candidates running against GOP House incumbents this year. But so far, only one Democratic congressional challenger in Illinois has endorsed it -- Bob Abboud, who is challenging 16th District Congressman Don Manzullo.

It's no surprise that Abboud is the first one on board. He's an ideas man. In our image-obsessed political environment, it's refreshing to see someone with his background make a run for the House.

Like Rep. Bill Foster in the 14th District, Abboud is a scientist. After a stint in the Navy he worked for the Argonne National Laboratory and Commonwealth Edison as a nuclear engineer. He left ComEd after 20 years to start his own successful research and development lab.

A cursory look at Abboud's website shows that he is applying a scientific approach to his platform. For nearly every policy issue, he has a clearly articulated plan replete with analysis and clearly defined proposals (sometimes even charts and graphs). While Abboud could turn off some voters if he dives into full-blown wonkiness, his ability to provide solid and often ambitious policy proposals is a welcome change at a time when many are looking for fresh ideas.

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With an accord reached Tuesday between Democratic and Republican state lawmakers, Ohio will become the sixth state to ratify the Great Lakes Compact:

Ohio had been a major obstacle to the pact because of a disagreement over whether the plan would inadvertently violate property rights for groundwater on privately owned land. House Speaker Jon Husted, a Republican, and Democratic Minority Leader Joyce Beatty, reached a deal Monday to affirm private property rights and set the stage for Tuesday's vote.

The Great Lakes hold about 90 percent of our nation's fresh surface water and 20 percent of the world's fresh surface water. As water resources become more scarce, the compact is viewed by supporters as a means of protecting the environment, and as a way for people in the region to protect their water rights. But some environmentalists say that the compact itself gives states too many options to continue the wholesale privatization of surface water.

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Dick Morris isn't a doctor. He just plays one on morning talk radio.

A former Clinton operative, Morris broke ties with the president in 1996 and went on to make a career of bashing the Clintons as a conservative pundit. Earlier today on WIND's John & Cisco In The Morning, he stopped by to spread the love. Near the end of the interview, the issue of Bill Clinton's campaign behavior came up and Morris made some irresponsible claims that shouldn't go unchallenged.

Citing the former president's recent colorful criticism of Vanity Fair reporter Todd Purdum, co-host "Big John" Howell asked Morris whether Clinton was starting to "go around the bend." Morris responded by suggesting that Clinton's behavior may be the result of brain damage incurred during his quadruple bypass surgery in 2004. Specifically, he remarked that doctors "always say you come out of that [operation] with less IQ than you went into it."

Take a listen:

Internal mp3

Presumably Morris is picking up on Purdum's recent profile of Clinton in which Dr. Thomas Traill of John's Hopkins University is quoted saying that patients' moods can be altered by open heart surgery. (He compared it to postpartum depression.) But it's quite a far leap from Traill's comments about depression to Morris' completely unfounded suggestion of possible brain damage.

If you want a more nuanced, convincing, and even poignant analysis of Clinton's sometimes emotional outbursts on the campaign trail, check out this recent post by Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall. In a nutshell, Marshall paints Clinton as a once agile campaign operator who is way behind the times and unable to adapt to new media technology and our rapid-response political culture. It's a much better starting place to understanding the former president than Dick Morris' snake-tongued insinuations.

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While we've heard a lot about floods brought on by recent storms in Indiana and Wisconsin, little has been said about the effects of heavy rains in Illinois (we've been focusing more on twisters). Well, that changed today:

Officials tell the Lawrenceville Daily Record that an early morning levee failure along the Embarras River is forcing the evacuations of portions of eastern Lawrence County.The evacuation apparently involves about 200 homes, and the flooded area so far is mostly farmland and prairie.

Officials also say another levee broke along the Wabash River near Westport.

Shelters are being set up in the 4,600-resident town of Lawrenceville at Parkview Elementary School and Central Christian Church.

Voluntary evacuations also are being done near 900-resident St. Francisville, along the Wabash River south of Lawrenceville.

Over at Capitol Fax, Rich Miller has been covering the potential political fallout if the state response is deemed inadequate. At least one lawmaker, Rep. Roger Eddy (R-Hutsonville), has already raised questions about whether Gov. Blagojevich should have acted sooner to focus federal attention on the situation in his district. For his part the governor has directed the Illinois Emergency Management Agency (IEMA) to get a handle on the flooding.

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A heads up from the AP: the GOP group Freedom's Watch will be treating the Prairie State to an "onslaught" of robocalls targeting Barack Obama and opposing the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act. From the looks of it, the calls feature all the usual scare tactics:

The calls are the first by Freedom's Watch to make the Democratic presidential candidate and Illinois senator the focus of a paid media campaign. The group is launching hundreds of thousands of the calls Friday aimed at senators in seven states [...]

The telephone calls tell listeners that the climate change bill would increase gas prices and electricity rates. "Even worse, Obama's vote could cost Illinois over 100,000 manufacturing jobs," the caller says.

The Obama calls will be made in Illinois. Senators in six other states also are targeted, including Debbie Stabenow in Michigan and Claire McCaskill in Missouri.

As Adam wrote a last week, Lieberman-Warner is a relatively toothless bill. However, it's also the first attempt to curb climate change we've seen in three years, and would set a good foundation for an incoming president willing to really do something about global warming.

It strikes me as odd that Freedom's Watch is taking this fight to Obama's home turf, though. Illinoisans seem quite fond of their presidential hopeful, and government action to curb climate change is a popular idea nationally. But if these lobbyists want to waste their money here, I guess that's fine with me.

Regardless of what the group hopes to achieve, their efforts have had little political impact recently, as the AP notes:

In April and May, Freedom's Watch aired ads in Louisiana and Mississippi aimed at Democratic candidates in two special elections and tried to equate their stands to Obama's. Both Democrats won.

Citing one of his infamous unnamed sources, syndicated columnist Robert Novak wrote on Sunday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wanted to see Rahm Emanuel take over as Illinois' junior senator if Barack Obama is elected president.

According to Novak, Emanuel expressed zero interest in such a move:

Emanuel told this column he is not interested in the Senate and has not talked to Pelosi about it. He also suggested that Pelosi might be saying she would regret losing him from her leadership team. However, the source quoting the speaker indicated she was enthusiastic about Emanuel's elevation to the Senate.

Emanuel would be a counter-intuitive replacement for Obama for two reasons: 1) a Clinton protege, he was the only member of the Illinois congressional delegation who did not endorse Obama until the primary was essentially over; and 2) Open Left's Chris Bowers notes that Emanuel is such a high-ranking House member that he would be "one of the few people who would actually lose power by moving to the Senate."

Bowers -- who, like many progressives, has been disappointed by Emanuel's centrist positions -- goes on to offer some reasons why naming Rahm to Obama's seat "might actually be very good from a progressive movement perspective."

That being said, while Pelosi's opinion on this matter is interesting, it's also meaningless. If the need to replace Obama arises -- and hopefully it will -- Gov. Blagojevich is going to be the one making the call. The only public official who would really have an effect on that decision is Obama himself.

Treated more or less as a novelty during his successful campaign for Congress, Bill Foster's background as a particle physicist is playing an increasingly important role in his representation of the 14th District. Specifically, Foster's scientific background has strengthened Democratic efforts to drum up federal support for Batavia-based Fermilab, one of the Department of Energy's national science laboratories.

The Daily Herald recognized his support of the facility in an editorial over the weekend:

Foster joined other Illinois members of Congress and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin two weeks ago in proclaiming the U.S. Senate had approved $250 million in funding for energy, helping to assure Fermilab in Batavia could continue its research and retain staffing that was threatened by budget cuts late last year. Now Foster will push the concept among his colleagues in the House in hopes of approving the bill, which earmarks $100 million for the Department of Energy's Office of Science and another $150 million to the National Science Foundation.

Foster himself worked at Fermilab before entering politics. Not only has he championed the lab in the halls of Congress, he also recently spoke with physicists in Batavia, pushing them to more clearly communicate the "health, security, and economic" importance of their projects to lawmakers in Washington.

Beyond the general promise that scientific advancement holds for the entire country, Fermilab is a pressing issue in the 14th District. The lab is planning to lay off some of its 1,900-person workforce due to recent budget cuts.

Today, The Politico published an interview with 8th District Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean. When asked how long she's known Barack Obama, she offered up these memories:

Bean: For years. He and I were on the campaign trail together because we came to Congress together. In fact, we were the two who “couldn’t win.” But we were both sworn in on the same day, both were elected on the same night. [...]

I remember he used to pull his tie when the press would ignore us. We would be in the back of the room at some event of Chicago, but because we weren’t the favored candidates early on, we couldn’t’ get the time of day.

Politico: He’d pull his tie?

Bean: We would do this Rodney Dangerfield thing, like, “We’re getting no respect. What are we, chopped liver?” And we’d laugh about it in the back of the room.

From "chopped liver" to a crowd of 17,000 on Tuesday night in St. Paul, MN (with an additional 15,000 congregating outside the stadium there). Not too shabby.