UpdatesCheck out photos from June 14th’s Women for Brad event, and sign up to hear about upcoming events in our area.
The room was filled to capacity as Brad addressed his supporters
The crowd at the Women for Brad event on June 14th filled the room to capacity with energized, ready-to-work supporters
Brad surprised Karyn Davidman with a birthday cupcake.
By Laurence D. Schiller 
Bob Dold has a problem. In a district that voted for Barack Obama twice, he has to appear to be independent and moderate. Yet he also depends on right-wing PACs and conservative Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to help fill his campaign coffers. Dold’s dilemma became worse when Donald Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee for President after winning the majority of votes in the 10th District’s Republican primary and the endorsement of Speaker Ryan. How to appeal to independents, who reject Trump’s racist, misogynist, and downright dangerous policies, while keeping the Trump voters in his camp and Republican PAC money flowing in?
Dold’s solution? Create an illusion. Talk like a moderate while fully supporting the right-wing Republican agenda.
An analysis of Dold’s votes on key bills by the nonpartisan VoteSmart.org shows that on over 40 key votes during his tenure in Congress, Dold has voted against the values he claims he holds in common with the 10th District. And every one of these key roll calls broke down essentially on party lines, with the self-styled independent Dold voting with his fellow Republicans.
This month, we focus on what Dold has and hasn’t done in Congress to protect our planet. Here are some of his votes:
Dold voted for SJ Res 22 (January 2016) which sought to overturn President Obama’s expansion of the authority of the EPA and Corps of Engineers after the Flint water disaster. In other words, Dold opposed strengthening the EPA’s ability to protect other communities’ water supplies from the kind of pollution that has exposed Flint’s residents to toxic levels of lead in their water. The bill was sponsored in the House by Tea Party darling Joni Ernst (R-IA). President Obama vetoed it on January 20.
In June 2016, Dold voted with every other Republican in the House in favor of a resolution stating opposition to a carbon tax, thereby aligning himself with vocal climate-change deniers in his party like Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), who sponsored the resolution. During his first term, in 2011, Dold also voted along with his party’s climate-change deniers to bar the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases. (Energy Tax Prevention Act; H.R. 910; vote number 11-HV249, Apr 7, 2011).
In January 2015, Dold voted to approve the environmentally dangerous Keystone XL pipeline (HR 3, January 2015). Notably, then-Congressman Brad Schneider voted against approval when a similar bill came to a vote in May 2013.
In 2010, Dold signed the so-called No Climate Tax Pledge sponsored by the right-wing Institute for Liberty Americans for Prosperity (AFP).
In May of 2011, Dold voted to repeal President Obama’s ban against drilling for oil in the continental shelf in another straight party-line vote.
In October 2011, Dold voted for a land exchange where valuable Arizona national forest lands were given to Resolution Copper Company for exploitation (HR 1904, October 2011).
In July 2015, Dold voted to make it harder to mount environmental challenges to projects, such as logging, in national forests (H.R. 2647, July 2015).
In a statement, the White House “strongly opposed” the bill Dold supported and said it would “undermine collaborative forest restoration, environmental safeguards, and public participation across the National Forest System and public lands.”
In February 2012, Dold voted to stop environmental restoration efforts in the San Joaquin Valley, including overriding the Endangered Species Act and ending the reintroduction of salmon (H.R. 1837, February 2012).
We could go on, but our point should be clear. Bob Dold is no friend of the environment. No wonder Brad Schneider has earned the endorsement of the Sierra Club.
Bob Dold is clearly NOT the environment-friendly moderate he claims to be as, again and again, he follows the party line on key environmental votes. Dold does NOT represent the values of the 10th Congressional District. Time to elect Brad Schneider, who does.
by Pam Idleburg
Let me share a conversation that I had with my seven-year-old granddaughter last week.
We were riding in the car and I was listening to POTUS on the radio. This is a channel on my radio I listen to regularly, and Daija and I spend a lot of time together.
We have had several occasions to talk about politics and the different candidates. I know that Daija thinks that Hillary Clinton should win and the other old guy should be second, but I didn’t see this one coming.
We were listening to President Obama’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton. I mentioned to Daija that Hillary Clinton had won the Democratic nomination and President Obama’s support.
At first, she didn’t understand and exclaimed, “OH NO! HE won?”
I told her, “No, Trump didn’t win.” Trump is the HE in our world. I explained to her that now, “Trump and Hillary Clinton will be in a race for the President of the United States. We will all vote again in November.” Daija went with me the last time I voted, so this made sense to her.
“We are voting for Hillary, right?”
“Yes, we are,” I reassured her.
“Good,” she said. Now this is from a seven-year-old, mind you.
She continued, “I hope he doesn’t win, because then he is going to send me back.”
“Send you back where Daija?” I asked.
“Back to where I came from. If he wins, then he will send me back,” she replied.
I had to pull over to the curb. She was seriously worried. Again, I asked her, “Where are you supposed to go?”
“Back to Denmark, Sweden and African American,” she said.
“Which part of you is going where?” I asked. Now I’m teasing her a bit, but she is holding her own.
“I don’t know, but my friends and I talk about this at school, and two of them will have to go back to Mexico.”
These are first graders having these conversations. “Were your friends born here in America?” I asked.
“Yes, but he is going to send them back if he wins. That’s what they said because they are Mexican American. They would have to leave,” Daija explained. She’s got a little tear in her eye.
I told her that she and her friends are American with heritage (try explaining heritage to a seven-year-old) from those other countries and that she and her friends aren’t going to have to go anywhere. I also told her that Hillary will be President and that Hillary will have our backs.
She gave a big sigh.
I was reeling.
These are seven-year-olds, first graders. They talk about if this bad guy Trump wins, he will send them away back to where they came from. This is little kid FEAR.
This is serious. This terrible man has managed to invade the peace and happiness of innocent seven-year-olds through his bigotry and hatred. Not only is he scaring grown adults, he’s scaring the kids. Even the KIDS know that considering this man for the Presidency of the United States is a terrible mistake.
So, how much simpler can the message be to adults? There is only one major party candidate fit to be President, and that’s Hillary Clinton.
The other guy is just plain scary to everybody.
Daija’s grandpa, John Idleburg, is a candidate for Lake County Board.
Deerfield, IL — The Tenth Congressional District Democrats (Tenth Dems) mourns the passing of the Hon. Abner “Ab” Mikva. Mikva was known nationally thanks in part to his work in the White House and as a federal judge. Ab also was beloved by the people of the 10th District.
Mikva was elected as the Congressman from Illinois’ 10th District before his appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals by President Jimmy Carter. He served admirably, inspiring countless people over the years.
“Ab Mikva is one of the finest public servants I have ever known,” said Tenth Dems’ Founding Chair and former state legislator, Lauren Beth Gash. “His integrity and zeal to make the world a better place are legendary.”
Since 2007, Tenth Dems has awarded annually the Abner Mikva Political Leadership Award. On most occasions, Ab himself was able to present the award to the recipient, making it even more of an honor.
Tenth Dems is a grassroots organization that works to elect Democrats to all levels within Illinois’ 10th Congressional District.
By Laurence D. Schiller
The atmosphere was electric the evening of May 18, as Tenth Dems University Dean Sharon Sanders and Managing Vice-Chair Barbara Altman introduced David Yepsen to a standing-room-only crowd at the Northbrook Public Library.
Mr. Yepsen, who was keynote speaker at the Tenth Dems Annual Awards Dinner in 2015, served as the chief political reporter for The Des Moines Register, where he worked for 34 years, and is the current Director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute housed at SIU Carbondale.
Yepsen maintains strict political independence. He began his remarks by characterizing this election as perhaps the most interesting and strange in recent history, with both parties divided. In his opinion, though, the GOP is undergoing a real civil war. In contrast, the Democrats, while passionate for each of their candidates, will most likely unite behind the eventual nominee, he opined.
Yepsen observed that the media, including himself, has misunderstood the Trump phenomenon. As a result, he feels cautious about predicting the outcome of the fall election, warning that the Democrats would have to work hard to beat Trump. Noting that the election is still many months away, he cautioned that unpredictable outside factors, such as ISIS’s actions, could have an enormous impact.
Next, Yepsen ticked off the election positives of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, whom he considers the all-but-presumptive Democratic nominee.
Factors that could lead to a Trump victory include:
On the other hand, the electoral math doesn’t work very well for the GOP. The number of white, blue collar, non-college educated voters has been declining, and Trump is going to have to either find more of these people to bring into the electorate or mend fences with other parts of America’s increasingly diverse electorate.
Yepsen’s list of factors that argue for a Clinton victory includes:
A spirited question-and-answer period followed Yepsen’s remarks, going on for more than 40 minutes. Topics touched on ran the gamut from how to interpret the polls, the extent of media bias, the amount of free media publicity Trump has enjoyed, and Trump’s mastery of “new media” like Twitter, to the issues between Sanders supporters and some party leaders and whether or not the “not Clinton” Democrats are likely to come out and vote for her when push comes to shove in November.
Yepsen, who does programs like this frequently, remarked about the exceptionally high level of participation. “I’ve never had a group so interesting and knowledgeable,” he said.
At the start of the evening, Tenth News designer Michael del Rosario, a high school student, talked briefly about the Tenth Dems summer internship program. Just before the Q and A period, Delio Calzolari, the Associate Director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, talked about the late Jeanne Hurley Simon and the scholarship established in her memory.
