Rahm EmanuelRahm Emanuel will be sworn in as Chicago's new mayor on May 16, just 15 days before the end of the state legislative session. So while Emanuel has more than enough on his plate dealing with the first Chicago mayoral transition in 22 years, he and his team appear well aware that they will have precious few days to get what they want out of the Statehouse after he's inaugurated.

Emanuel's transition team hired a Statehouse emissary several weeks ago. They're not calling him a "lobbyist," however. He's more of an "observer," they say. And they decided not to call attention to themselves by choosing any of the well-known, Chicago-connected contract lobbyists in town. Instead, they hired Mike Ruemmler, who ran Emanuel's campaign advance team. Born and raised in southern Illinois' Mt. Vernon, Ruemmler is not your typical city lobbyist. Ruemmler ran a campaign for state Senator Michael Frerichs, so he has some Statehouse connections.

Emanuel has tried hard not to step on Mayor Daley's toes, using the "one mayor at a time" phrase over and over. While that philosophy has extended to Springfield, it doesn't mean Emanuel is completely uninvolved. He sat down with House Speaker Michael Madigan, Senate President John Cullerton, and Senator Kimberly Lightford before the final school-reform deal was made. His staff also worked on behalf of Lightford's bill, and Emanuel has since pledged to make sure the House passes it.

The 2011 session of the Iowa legislature will go on for weeks if not months, Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal said Thursday.

"This is going to take a while," said Gronstal (D-Council Bluffs).

A budget agreement between Republican Governor Terry Branstad, the Republican-controlled House, and the Democrat-led Senate is needed by June 30, the end of the fiscal year, to avert a government shutdown. House Speaker Kraig Paulsen predicted that an agreement would be reached by then.

"House Republicans are not going to let government shut down," said Paulsen (R-Hiawatha). "I think that would be unacceptable."

This year's situation is similar to one in 1992, when Branstad, who also was governor at that time, and the Democrat-controlled legislature were also deadlocked on the state budget and tax policy. A compromise was eventually reached on June 25, in a second special session.

In two distinct moves toward adjournment of the Iowa legislature despite a lack of agreement, Statehouse Republicans on Tuesday decided upon the size of the budget pie while the Democratic-led Senate pushed ahead with what's usually the final bill of the year before adjourning for the week.

"This starts our movement to hopefully adjourn the session," said Senate Appropriations Chair Bob Dvorsky (D-Coralville). "We don't have any more bills to do anything with."

Iowa's state general-fund budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 will be less than $6 billion, according to an agreement reached Tuesday by Republicans in the Iowa House and Senate and Governor Terry Branstad.

The move represents one step toward agreement and eventual adjournment of the 2011 legislative session. However, no Democrats were at the table in determining the size of the budget pie, and they control the Iowa Senate.

Following Jeff Terronez's resignation as Rock Island County state's attorney and his guilty plea last week, I was waiting for the Quad Cities' daily newspapers to forcefully and directly raise a simple question: Why didn't he resign sooner?

More relevant at this point: Why didn't the county's Democratic leaders strongly encourage his resignation long before he agreed to a plea deal?

Alas, the closest the newspapers got was the Quad-City Times' April 27 editorial: "Terronez ... has decimated the credibility of his office, his former colleagues, and every Democrat who stood by silently as this crime was covered up for at least six months. That's how long Terronez dodged specific questions from us and others about this crime. ... If, as Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan claimed, police found only enough to charge him with providing the alcohol [to a minor], Terronez could have cleared that up with an honest answer in October."

But the "honest answer" the Times said Terronez should have provided is far different from his resignation. And both the Times and Rock Island Argus/Moline Dispatch seem more concerned with getting full details of the Illinois State Police investigation.

As if it isn't complicated enough to pass a workers-compensation reform bill - what with unions, trial lawyers, and the medical community so far allied together against major changes - there's also a noticeable schism within the business lobby about what to do and how far to go.

This schism isn't new. In one way or another, the major business groups compete against each other for members and, therefore, tend to tout themselves as the true leaders over the others. That sometimes-friendly, sometimes-not rivalry intensified a bit since the Democrats won complete power in 2002.

Skies above Iowa, north of Waterloo, March 1, 2011.

Take a second look the next time you see jet-streams way up in the atmosphere. Are they lingering for a long time? Do you see a pattern or grids forming? These are not commercial airlines creating these trails in the sky.

Geo-engineering programs that claim to prevent global warming by spraying toxins into our atmosphere are commonly referred to as "chemtrails." Most people assume the white, fluffy trails being emitted from some jets as they fly across the sky are condensation trails from exhaust, or "contrails." But common sense informs us that contrails do not occur in crisscross grids across the sky, remain overhead long after the plane(s) have left the sky, or continue to expand throughout the day, culminating in a veil of fog that eventually falls to the earth.

Chemtrails have become a common occurrence both nationwide and around the world, delivering massive doses of toxic materials over not just our farmlands and homesteads but also over some of the planet's most pristine environments, including Mount Shasta in California and remote areas of the Hawaiian islands.

With Japan's nuclear crisis and a wave of instability crossing the Middle East, pols and pundits are turning again to the question of our energy future. Will civil war and strife disrupt access to oil and our way of life? Can the United States change its century-old pattern of relying heavily upon petroleum?

People will reach different answers to these questions and draw different conclusions about what to do. It would be helpful, however, if everyone could get the factual premises right.

Unfortunately, one thing all too many observers have in common is an erroneous understanding of what the term "proven oil reserves" means. The myths surrounding this oft-cited figure are pervasive. And there's no way to have a realistic conversation about energy without getting facts and definitions straight.

Some big Chicago-area retailers have found a way to avoid paying high local sales taxes on their wholesale purchases. They've essentially set up their own "tax havens" in Downstate counties that have no local sales taxes. The havens are mostly just one-person offices with a fax machine.

The retailers contract to purchase mass quantities of fuel, or construction equipment, or lumber, or whatever, and then those contracts are faxed to their little Downstate offices, stamped as received and then faxed back to headquarters and - voilà - no high local sales taxes are owed.

Back in January, the Illinois Department of Revenue lost a court case filed by Hartney Fuel Oil Company, Putnam County, and the little town of Mark, Illinois (population 500). Hartney is based in Cook County but had a "sales office" in no-tax Mark. The Department of Revenue claimed Hartney owed sales taxes in Cook, but a Putnam County judge disagreed.

Nobody really noticed. But then some folks got the bright idea of introducing a bill at the Statehouse to codify the Downstate court case to make certain that all Chicago-area companies had the same option.

Bad move.

The Iowa Senate on Wednesday voted 38-12 for a gambling bill that calls for a report on Internet poker and lifts the requirement that Iowa casinos face a vote of the people every eight years.

"There are good parts of this bill and other parts that give me grave concern," said Senator Brad Zaun (R-Urbandale). "The seven years I've been down here, we've talked about the referendums, horse racing, but never could any of these bills survive and stand on its own two feet."

Senate File 526 would have the Iowa Racing & Gaming Commission produce a report that would look further into the issue of Internet poker. The bill originally would have legalized Internet poker, but Zaun credited the change to an Iowa poll that showed 73 percent of Iowans are opposed to legalizing Internet gambling.

"[Jesus] was surely one of the great ethical innovators of history. The Sermon on the Mount is way ahead of its time. His 'turn the other cheek' anticipated Gandhi and Martin Luther King by two thousand years. It was not for nothing that I wrote an article called 'Atheists for Jesus' (and was delighted to be presented with a T-shirt bearing the legend)." - Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (2006)

For those who profess to be Christians, the week leading up to Easter is the most sacred time of the year, commemorating as it does the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Yet while Jesus is a revered religious figure, he was also, as atheist Richard Dawkins recognizes, a radical in his own right whose life and teachings changed the course of history.

Too often today radicalism is equated with terrorism, extremism, and other violent acts of resistance. Yet true radicalism, the kind embodied by such revolutionary figures as Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King Jr., and Gandhi, actually involves speaking truth to power through peaceful, nonviolent means. Separated by time and distance, Christ, King, and Gandhi were viewed as dangerous by their respective governments because they challenged the oppressive status quo of their day.

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