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Can times get better in America without a major crisis?

Can times get better in America without a major crisis?

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Editors note:

The various Federal Circuits seem to be controlling Donald Trump’s legal authority on immigration. He wants to stop criminals and terrorists from entering the U.S. a sensible way of protecting citizens. Obama did not enforce the law and nothing was said, no complaints from the courts. Obama even took the side of Mexico against Arizona with the Courts remaining silent. As a citizen I am angry. Who decides what laws will be allowed to be enforced? Do these Federal Circuits have absolute power to decide on our laws. These Judges are appointed, not elected and seem to remain as a judge for life. The Constitution should be the law of the land. Unfortunately it has been under attack for years by those who want to replace it with law they like. The problem is agreeing on law is not so easy with no bench to fall back to. The Global Elites want to control people, while many people have no clue what they are doing to all of us in the name of the law. Trump wants to return power back to the people while the Global elite want to take that power by any means. All they need is 1 judge from 1 Federal Circuit to start a negative chain of events on the American  people.
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There is war going on now between government and the American people. It’s being fought on many fronts. Only a few Americans are aware of the depth and breadth of what is happening, and fewer still are seriously concerned.
You knowledgeable readers of Personal Liberty® and consumers of non-fake news are outliers, making up only a small percentage of the American populace. The vast majority of Americans are unaware, and unaware that they are unaware. They are blown to and fro and easily excited over every fake meme and outrage making its way across social media and headlined on mainstream media outlets.
Did you know that the U.S. has almost as many in prison as China and Russia combined?
The U.S. is a prosecuting attorney haven. What else would anyone expect with more lawyers in the U.S. than the rest of the world combined?
The American system of Justice (just us) is the modern version of the old Star Chamber. A Star Chamber is a system of entrapment that provides no escape. The accused is made to testify against himself and then punished upon confession of guilt.
American jurisprudence is just like the Star Chamber. All rules of evidence in the U.S. start with “pretrial discovery” or the deposition of the defendant. The defendant is sworn to tell the truth which necessarily includes confession and testimony against himself. If he refuses to testify (confess) he is arrested and jailed. If, on the other hand he answers the questions, he will sooner or later incriminate himself.
It is a crime to lie to federal agents (and even local police can charge you with obstruction of justice for lying), but it is not a crime for federal agents – or any investigative agent – to lie to you about any evidence he may or may not possess. In fact, they are trained to lie in order to attempt to extract from you a confession or to coerce you into incriminating yourself in a crime for which they did not even suspect.
The IRS entrapment system is the perfect example of the Star Chamber. If you don’t agree to testify (confession), the agent forces your tax return without benefit of deductions. The U.S. is especially aggressive in seeking tax prosecution cases.
America has many political prisoners. The “law” and the criminal code are used to go after anyone who will not conform.
Ninety-nine percent of all cases prosecuted go in favor of the government. Anyone thinking that they have constitutional rights in America need to know this before they go into court against the government. It is almost impossible to beat the king in his own court. He has an ever-full money sack, an army of investigators and lawyers and a sympathetic press at his discretion.
So yes, you are guilty! Believe me, anyone in America can be prosecuted on some tax or other nebulous pretext. There is a crime for all of us. Currently there are some 4,500 listed criminal offenses. These listed Federal offenses have exploded well beyond the statute books and into the morass of the Code of Federal Regulations, giving federal prosecutors thousands of additional vague, complex and technical prohibitions removed from congressional authority or any authority but the federal prosecutors themselves. People are targeted and a crime is found to fit.
As Harvey Silverglate writes in his book, “Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent,” it’s more than likely that every American commits at least three felonies every day just going about the normal, everyday task of living.
John Stuart Mill wrote in his classic work On Liberty, “Let us not flatter ourselves that we are yet free from the stain of legal persecution.” Oxford World Classics 1998 ed. pp34.
The government uses criminal law for political purposes. Oaths are imposed to twist people into self-prosecution.
The American press cannot be trusted to expose the truth. The national press is either part of the Central Intelligence Agency or is owned/controlled by the CIA and the Council on Foreign Relations. The national press is also in an incestuous relationship with both major political parties.
The few independent journalists who manage to make it to prominence must comply with established orthodoxy or be run out of town (see Sharyl Attkisson and Helen Thomas) so they are fearful and intimidated by the government. The press will only tell the government’s side of any issue.
Even though government is on the brink of collapse, no one will relinquish power.
Federal judges, as a whole, only rule in favor of the government. Few Americans are aware that the judiciary of the United States is accountable to no one. Thomas Jefferson was correct when he said the most ruthless, dishonest and dangerous segment in our government is the unaccountable judiciary.
Everything lies in their hands, from property values to the national wealth itself. When the rule of law becomes the self-interest of the state, nobody is safe. Your future is destroyed and your savings and assets are not secure.
When a Federal judge does not have any checks and balances to regulate his behavior, the very purpose of the rule of law is defeated.
There is no incentive to obey any law when prosecutors (prosecuting attorneys) and all judges have absolute immunity and when persons of privilege and stature are exonerated for wrongdoing that puts others under the prison (Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin). It does not matter if they are in direct conflict with the established law and the U.S. Constitution.
The government legal system forces pleas of guilty on threat of much larger sentences if one goes to trial. This, too, is our modern version of the old Star Chamber. You see, we don’t have to call it Star Chamber.
Federal, state and local police agencies have become branches of the military (the standing army the Founders feared), outfitted in full military garb and with all the weapons of war. They are trained with an us-versus-them mentality (many of them now come out of the Middle East wars) and respond to even the most minor of all incidents with overwhelming force.
Like judges and prosecutors, LEOs (legally entitled to oppress) enjoy qualified immunity. They are rarely held accountable when their actions lead to the death or injury of someone they suspect of being a criminal.  So any system or government agent immune from prosecution can never be wrong, and tyranny reigns. So it is government against the people, not government by the people.
The major parties and the press – aided by foreign money (George Soros) — are also fomenting civil war among the masses. These battles are breaking out in cities across the nation under the guise of protests against offensive speech or ideology and defense of free speech.
But the participants are largely paid actors who are working to incite the populace against itself. What we are witnessing is the Hegelian Dialectic or synthesis, of creating a new order or thesis.
The U.S. is past the point of no return. Even though the system is stained with blood, it will not and it cannot self-correct. And certainly it will not through the political process, which only rearranges the deck chairs. It will have to totally collapse.
So to answer the original interrogative: Can times get better in America without a major crisis?
Not possible!
We must go through the fire to wipe the slate clean. I hope you are prepared. If you are, I will meet you on the other side and together we can rebuild a free nation.
Related:
How do we discover the truth?
Psychological warfare: How words shape our thoughts and actions 
America is under military occupation, but Americans are pushing back 
What happens when benevolent totalitarianism ceases to be benevolent?
What can you do now as an American citizen? 
Affirmatively destroying America’s neighborhoods in the war on suburbia

Take a look at America’s future

Take a look at America’s future

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If you want to know what America will soon look like, look no further than Venezuela.
Despite sitting on some of the world’s greatest oil reserves, Venezuela’s Marxist government is collapsing. It’s not a pretty sight.
The American media is giving short shrift to the Venezuelan situation. People are starving. It is so bad that zoo animals have been butchered for food. Bakery owners are being imprisoned for making unapproved bread and because lines form outside their shops.
Street protests are growing in number and would be of even greater size if so many of the people weren’t too weak from hunger to protest.
Still hundreds of thousands are in the streets daily, and have been for weeks, protesting President Nicolás Maduro and demanding immediate presidential elections. Maduro has responded by dancing in public, nationalizing multinational corporations and vowing to rewrite the nation’s constitution in order to cement his power.
Clashes are getting ever-more violent. At least 37 have died in the most recent rounds of unrest. On Wednesday, video emerged of a government armored vehicle rolling over protesters, seriously injuring at least one.

It is curious that when a “terrorist” rolls a truck over a crowd in France or Switzerland, we get wall-to-wall coverage from the mainstream media, but when a government truck rolls over a crowd, the MSM is mum, demonstrating their power over public perception.
I predicted Venezuela’s collapse in the March 2008 issue of The Bob Livingston Letter™ (subscription required), writing:

Witness Zimbabwe today: 7,000 percent inflation and the once great and prosperous nation called Rhodesia is now in chaos and collapse.
The same inflation printing press money is fast building in Venezuela. Unless they have a regime change, total collapse lies ahead.

Although they changed titular heads because of the cancer death of Hugo Chavez, Venezuela did not have regime change. Now, inflation in Venezuela is approaching 2,000 percent. Its currency collapse began in 2012.
How could I have predicted this? Socialism and printing press money regimes always collapse. And so, too, will America.
Inflation is a great illusion. Few understand or try to understand it. Yet it is the great theft and hidden tax on the entire population.
What is inflation? Just pull your wallet out and get a green piece of paper called dollars or currency. You have in your hand inflation, a product of the “money creators.”
Every dollar created as well as all the credit created is inflation. This is a huge secret of the elite insiders.
The important thing to understand is that inflation (creating money) is theft coupled with destruction of wealth and eventually ruin. All who hold dollars are at risk but few realize it.
And not many will understand or believe that what is happening in Venezuela, and what happened in Zimbabwe in 2000-2009, and what happened in the Weimar Republic in Germany in 1923 is repeating in the U.S.
Our politicians and government men are just as greedy as any in the past — anywhere in the world.
Before inflation becomes deflation at the end, there are many illusions simply because we are not conscious of the difference between nominal (inflated) dollars and constant dollars measured from a base purchasing power 60 to 70 years ago. Constant dollars don’t change. Nominal (inflation) dollars change every day. The reason the public is confused is the gradual change.
People will accept anything gradually over time.
The American people have gone from freedom to fascism in 200 years and most are totally oblivious to it.
I will write more on this in the coming weeks.

Frank Mautino and the arrogance of Illinois’ political insiders

 

From Illinois Policy April 2017
Frank Mautino and the arrogance of Illinois’ political insiders

State agencies have paid more than $270,000 to Mautino Distributing Company – most of it after Madigan brought Mautino into a leadership role in 2009.
In 2015, Illinois needed a new financial watchdog. Auditor General William Holland was in charge of scrutinizing public pocketbooks. But after more than two decades at the helm, he was finally stepping down.
Frank Mautino was supposed to be the right man for the job.
He was the favorite of Springfield insiders who had worked with his father, a longtime House member like his son. He also was a bipartisan darling. Holland called Mautino “a man of great wisdom and dedication.” Springfield chatterer Rich Miller heralded the news of his impending appointment: “He’ll be a good choice …”
Mautino’s few critics in the General Assembly were dismissed as petty, partisan and paranoid. But outsiders knew something was fishy about Frank.
And they were right.
For more than a year, Mautino has been under fire for filing absurd campaign spending reports during his time as a lawmaker. His story is a shining example of the political arrogance that has brought the state to its knees.
Here’s the spending in question. Feel free to draw your own conclusions.
First, Mautino’s campaign spent more than $225,000 over 16 years at a single gas station.
A quick exercise: let’s assume Mautino spent half the money on gas. Let’s assume gas cost $3 a gallon and the car he filled up got 15 miles to the gallon. Mautino’s spending would give enough fuel to drive more than 35,000 miles per year from 1999 to 2015. The circumference of Earth is less than 25,000 miles, and Mautino ran unopposed three times in that period.
Figure that one out.
The second bit of spending under review by the Illinois State Board of Elections involves checks cut to a local bank. Mautino had a practice of cashing campaign checks and then listing the bank as the recipient of the money, leaving him free to dole out the cash in the dark. He spent more than $150,000 this way.
At worst, these are reckless receipts of brazen corruption. At best, this is brutish bookkeeping that should disqualify Mautino from the position he currently holds.
That’s right, he still hasn’t stepped down.
Illinois’ auditor-in-chief has refused to speak for over a year while under investigation for allegedly cooking his books. Even if he comes out of all this unscathed, how could anyone take his investigations seriously given Mautino’s own shoddy accounting?
State Rep. Jeanne Ives, R-Wheaton, introduced a resolution calling for Mautino to resign last year. It got holed up in House Speaker Mike Madigan’s Rules Committee. Madigan said he believes Mautino – his former Deputy Majority Leader – will be vindicated and continue to work as the auditor general.

Of course, it’s in the interest of most state lawmakers to hold their watchman over a barrel rather than push for his resignation. Leverage matters.
On May 1, counsel will file written statements in the case brought against Mautino at the Illinois State Board of Elections. The hearing officer is expected to file a recommendation by the end of the month. Mautino’s office is also under federal investigation, but that’s been kept under wraps.
So what’s the lesson in all this mess?
First, near-unanimous agreement on a political appointment among state politicians and gossips means you should run for the hills. Greasing all the right palms is not a qualification you want in an auditor general.
There were plenty of clues that should have invited more skepticism before Mautino’s appointment. That he was one of Madigan’s made men alone should have been enough to disqualify him from an oversight position. Further, his family is a mainstay in the distributor business – an industry where political clout goes a long way.
It turns out those two pieces of trivia may be linked.
Data obtained by nonprofit Open the Books revealed that state agencies have paid more than $270,000 to Mautino Distributing Company – most of it after Madigan brought Mautino into a leadership role in 2009.
That brings us to the second lesson: In Illinois, concerned citizens often do a better job at rooting out corruption than government officials tasked with oversight.
The Edgar County Watchdogs, a group started by of a couple of downstate Illinoisans doing yeoman’s work to keep government in check, first brought Mautino’s campaign spending to light. When they presented their findings to the Illinois State Board of Elections, they found the agency still wouldn’t take proactive steps to investigate Mautino. They needed a formal complaint. Thankfully, a man named David Cooke from Streator, Ill., stepped forward to take the hit. He enlisted the help of the nonprofit Liberty Justice Center, a sister organization of the Illinois Policy Institute, to argue on his behalf.
Frankly, Mautino’s case is an embarrassment. Leaders in both parties should be calling for his resignation, and taking concrete steps to sharpen the teeth of government oversight.

TAGS: corruption, Frank Mautino, Illinois Auditor General, Jeanne Ives, Mike Madigan, patronage, Rich Miller


A NOTE FOR OUR READERS:

We have one goal as an organization: to give you the straight truth about Illinois. Legacy media often cannot afford to tell the truth, and we know we aren’t often getting straight answers from our elected officials.
That’s why our independence is so important. Our award-winning writers work long hours to bring you the truth. Their work is entirely supported by donors like you who want to see a more prosperous Illinois.
More than 400,000 Illinoisans read this award-winning site each month, absolutely free of charge thanks to the generosity of our readers. Will you help us continue our mission with a financial donation?
Every penny counts – your donation will help us continue to deliver independent, unbiased news and information as we seek a more prosperous future for the great state of Illinois.

 

Chicago Public Schools budget shortfall: a manufactured crisis

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Chicago Public Schools budget shortfall: a manufactured crisis
What’s worse is that the city has the funds to shore up its budget, but that money is tied up in a slush fund called a TIF. The value? $1.35 billion.

Illinois Policy April 2017

Chicago Public Schools is faced with the possibility of closing school early while Chicago sits on massive property wealth.
With a current budget gap of $215 million, Chicago Public Schools, or CPS, has threatened to close three weeks early if it doesn’t get a cash infusion soon, leaving Chicago students and their families uncertain about when school will end this year.
CPS finances are a mess and they have been for years. But rather than enact the reforms needed to get the district back on track, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and CPS CEO Forrest Claypool are looking for a bailout.
What’s worse is that the city has the funds to shore up its budget, but that money is tied up in a slush fund. The value? $1.35 billion.
That money comes from hidden property wealth, which is siphoned into a political slush fund via a mechanism called tax increment financing, or TIF. TIF districts are special economic zones that were created to help cities and towns improve “blighted” neighborhoods.
City and village governments with TIFs use a portion of the property tax revenues generated in the special economic zone to give tax incentives to private developers located in these districts.
But the establishment of a TIF drains the amount of property tax revenue that a school district has available for education.
According to the Cook County Clerk, Chicago TIF districts ended 2015 with $461 million collected in new revenues. The city also has over $1 billion in TIF accounts that has been earmarked for “future redevelopment.” At a minimum, the annual revenues from TIF would cover the annual taxpayer cost of Chicago teacher pensions, and would defray the costs of retiree health care for the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund, which were approximately $202 million.
However, Mayor Emanuel and the aldermen don’t want to give up their slush fund. Ald. Walter Burnett, 27th Ward, noted: “I work hard in my community to build my TIF up, to make things happen in my ward … and now that I’ve built it up, I’ve got to give it to everybody else? It’s just not fair.”
Ald. Jason Ervin, 28th Ward, has claimed, “Robbing Peter to pay Paul is not the solution.” Indeed, taking money from one source to benefit another is not the solution to budget crises. Yet, that is what TIF does.
On April 28, Judge Franklin Ulyses Valderrama will issue a ruling on a lawsuit that contends there is racial discrimination in the state educational funding system. CPS is counting on a favorable ruling to balance their budget. However, the city needs to stop crying poor to the state while playing a financial shell game with taxpayer dollars. The money is available to help CPS. The City Council needs to step up to eliminate the slush fund that has helped cause this crisis by ensuring the future of developers over the future of students. Until it does, CPS will continue to face yearly shortfalls and budget crises that the state can’t afford.

TAGS: Chicago, CPS: Chicago Public Schools, CTPF: Chicago Teachers Pension Fund, education, Forrest Claypool, Rahm Emanuel, TIF


A NOTE FOR OUR READERS:

We have one goal as an organization: to give you the straight truth about Illinois. Legacy media often cannot afford to tell the truth, and we know we aren’t often getting straight answers from our elected officials.
That’s why our independence is so important. Our award-winning writers work long hours to bring you the truth. Their work is entirely supported by donors like you who want to see a more prosperous Illinois.
More than 400,000 Illinoisans read this award-winning site each month, absolutely free of charge thanks to the generosity of our readers. Will you help us continue our mission with a financial donation?
Every penny counts – your donation will help us continue to deliver independent, unbiased news and information as we seek a more prosperous future for the great state of Illinois.

This lion grows up to devour men

This lion grows up to devour men

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Richard Wurmbrand

Fifty-one years ago this Saturday, May 6, a “Hearing Before … the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, D.C.” presented one of the most essential, riveting, and agonized warnings in American history to the “United States Senate, Eighty-Ninth Congress, Second Session.” But as usually happens with such alarms, the audience largely ignored it — and continues to do so.
The witness that day was “Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, … a refugee from Rumania” and communism. Indeed, he was an expert on the latter; at one point in the hearing, he removed his shirt to “show you my credentials, how I have studied communism.” Pointing to his horrific scars, he exhorted the senators, “Look here, look here, look here. … And so the whole body. … They tortured by all means. They beat until they broke the bones. They used red-hot irons, they used knives, they used everything. … They interrogated you very politely [at first], and if you did not wish to say what they asked they said, ‘Well, we have the first. On the 15th you will be beaten and tortured at 10 o’clock in the evening.’ Imagine what 14 days were after this. We have had prisoners who during this time … knocked at the door, ‘I can’t bear it. I will say everything,’ before they have been tortured.”
Romanian police first arrested Pastor Wurmbrand in 1948. They imprisoned him until 1956 and again from 1959-1964. The charge? “…[P]reaching ideas contrary to Communist doctrine.” But lest the Senators assume that Communists prey only on Christians, the pastor clarified that every prisoner was at risk, regardless of religion: “The Jewish religion has been persecuted just as the Christian religion. … We had in prison the Moslem priests and so on.” Wurmbrand implied that Communists also savaged non-political criminals, too: “And if I would not have been a clergyman but a murderer — it is a crime to torture a murderer, too.”
Not even animals were safe: the Communists “crucified a cat before ourselves. They beat nails in the feet of the cat and the cat was hanging with the head down, and can you imagine how this cat screamed and the prisoners, mad, bead [sic] on the door, ‘Free the cat, free the cat, free the cat,’ and the Communists very polite, ‘Oh, surely we will free the cat, but give the statements which we ask from you and then the cat will be freed,’ and I have known men who have given statements against their wives, against their children, against their parents to free the cat. They did it out of madness, and then the parents and the wives have been tortured like the cat.”
Communism’s depredations didn’t end at the prison’s walls: it destroyed the entire country. The State regulated the economy into starvation: “… now our population is very, very poor,” Wurmbrand testified. “… I caressed a child and the mother said to me, ‘This child is so good, it doesn’t weep even when it is hungry.’ It had given up weeping because the child knew it is useless to weep. You can’t get food.”
Naturally, the state decreed who could earn a living and who couldn’t. The pastor recalled, “I was licensed to preach — of course, nobody can preach in our country accept [sic] he has a license from the Government — and in the beginning I got a license, but which was withdrawn from me after the first week of preaching.”
Communism stole not only the people’s wealth but their liberty as well: “…[Y]ou can’t say ‘communism is cruel, they commit atrocities, it is a crime to poison children with atheism.’ If you do this you go to prison. … Nobody can say a word of criticism. Such a thing doesn’t even enter in the mind of somebody. … Nobody dares to say a word.”
Pastor Wurmbrand was by no means the West’s only admonition against Marxism. Before Hitler’s brand of totalitarianism wrecked Germany, Lenin’s had slaughtered so many millions of his own countrymen that right-wing Europeans welcomed the Nazis as a bulwark against Marxism’s spread.
Indeed, Britain and America’s refusal to join Germany in repelling bloodthirsty “Bolshevism” astonished Hitler, let alone their alliance with the murderous Stalin. And this while Moscow’s agents infiltrated countries worldwide, threatening to conquer the entire planet.
No matter: American communists successfully imposed their Satanic objectives on us. Communism and its cousins, socialism and Progressivism, are so firmly embedded in our culture and politics that Americans fiercely defend Social Security, Medicare, Obummercare, public schools, etc., whether from cuts to their budgets or libertarian critics.
Meanwhile, the country increasingly mimics the dystopia that Pastor Wurmbrand fled. American states license preachers (Ohio, for example, requires such licensing if clergy wish to officiate at weddings), and the IRS controls churches via tax-exemptions (houses of worship that refuse to recognize sodomy as “marriage” may soon find themselves reclassified as “for-profit” and paying taxes. And the IRS forbids religious bodies from “engaging in any political campaign activity.  … the prohibition also applies to statements opposing candidates”). The USSA even officially tortures, albeit not on communism’s staggering scale — yet.
Wherever the communists came in the beginning,” Wurmbrand cautioned 51 years ago, “they said the same thing which I read here [in America] in newspapers and in periodicals. ‘You know Stalin’s communism has been very bad, but Yugoslavian communism or another kind of communism, this is very good.’ A little lion in its first days you can play with him just like with a puppy. When he becomes great, only then he is a lion. Yugoslavian communism is this little communism. And American communism a very little one and English communism is a very little one. When they grow, when they can do whatever they will to do, then only we can see them. … Communists in Rumania, too, were nice until they had the whole power in hand. … [Then] they have done things exactly as in Russia, and so they will do everywhere.”
Including here.
— Becky Akers

Becky Akers is a free-lance writer and historian who publishes so voluminously that whole forests of gigabytes have died. You’ve heard of some of the publications that carry her work (Personal Liberty Digest, Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post, Barron’s, New York Post); others can only wish you’d heard of them. She’s also written two novels of the American Revolution, Halestorm and Abducting Arnold. They advocate sedition and liberty, among other joys, so the wise reader will buy them now, before they’re banned.

WILL COUNTY RESIDENTS INVITED TO ATTEND PUBLIC OPEN HOUSES FOR COMMUNITY FRIENDLY FREIGHT MOBILITY PLAN

NEWS RELEASE
 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 2, 2017


CONTACT
Anastasia Tuskey, Communications Director
Or
Ragan Freitag, Will County Board Chief of Staff

WILL COUNTY RESIDENTS INVITED TO ATTEND PUBLIC OPEN HOUSES FOR 
COMMUNITY FRIENDLY FREIGHT MOBILITY PLAN
PUBLIC OPEN HOUSES SCHEDULED FOR MAY 16, 17, & 18
Will County and the Will County Center for Economic Development are seeking public input related to the development of the Will County Community Friendly Freight Mobility Plan. The Freight Plan is envisioned as a multimodal freight plan that will provide strategies and goals to guide freight policies, programs, projects and investments throughout Will County in a community-friendly manner. The Freight Plan will encompass a holistic planning approach covering freight mobility, land-use integration, workforce development, education/training and community livability.
County residents and those who work in and visit Will County and its municipalities are invited to learn about the development of the Freight Plan and provide their input related to freight and workforce programs, policies and projects through a series of public open houses and an online survey.
“There has been an unprecedented growth of freight transportation, distribution and logistics in Will County over the past 10 years,” said Will County Executive Larry Walsh. “As a county, we need a robust plan to understand what this industry means to our residents and our economy while also planning for projected future growth to be sure improvements are compatible for our local communities. A Freight Plan, formed with input from the community, will help improve overall quality of life for Will County residents and increase economic opportunity. I encourage all Will County residents to join their neighbors and colleagues to attend an open house or take the public survey and have their voices heard.”
“The freight plan will ensure that Will County has an efficient and robust transportation system for the years to come,” said Board Speaker Jim Moustis (R-Frankfort). “I strongly encourage our residents and members of the freight industry to attend an open house so that we can implement a plan that best reflects the needs of Will County residents.”
The open houses will include information and exhibits about the plan, including key freight data and facts, and what the future of freight could look like in Will County. Project representatives will be available to answer questions and opportunities for input will be provided.  The open houses will occur in the evening on May 16th, 17th and 18th at three locations (see below for details). The same information will be presented at all three open houses. People may attend any time between 5:00 – 7:30 P.M.
Details on the public open houses are as follows:
May 16th, 5:00-7:30 P.M.
William E Dugan Training Center
19800 W. South Arsenal Road
Wilmington, IL 60481
May 17th, 5:00-7:30 P.M.
Plainfield Village Hall Community Room
24401 W. Lockport Street
Plainfield, IL 60544
May 18th, 5:00-7:30 P.M.
New Lenox Village Hall
One Veterans Parkway
New Lenox, IL 60451
Those unable to attend one of the public open houses are encouraged to contribute their input and freight priorities through an online survey. The eleven-question survey is brief and should take only 5-7 minutes. The survey can be found online by visiting www.tiny.cc/WCFreightPlan.
For more information on the Will County Community Friendly Freight Mobility Plan, visit the project website: www.willcountyfreight.org.

Trump news May 6, 2017

PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP’S WEEKLY ADDRESS

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

President Trump signs an Executive Order Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty.
Read More
VIDEO: President Trump presents the U.S. Air Force Academy Commander-in-Chief Trophy.
Watch Video

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

President Trump tells the Incredible Story of an American War Hero.
Read More
President Trump proclaims May 2017 as National Mental Health Awareness Month.
Read More
Vice President Pence makes remarks at the Susan B. Anthony List Campaign for Life Gala.
Read More

UPCOMING EVENTS

May 18th: President Trump welcomes President Juan Manuel Santos of Columbia to the White House
Read More
May: President Trump’s First Foreign Travel Trip
Read More

Illinois House passes legislation to expand record sealing

Illinois House passes legislation to expand record sealing
Reforms such as record sealing expansion make it likelier that ex-offenders will be able to find work – and stop cycling in and out of prison.

Reforms such as record sealing expansion make it likelier that ex-offenders will be able to find work – and stop cycling in and out of prison. That means they and their families will have a chance to succeed. And the more ex-offenders enter this virtuous cycle – instead of returning to prison – the better off the state and taxpayers will be, too.

House Bill 2373, sponsored by state Rep. Camille Lilly, D-Oak Park, passed the Illinois House of Representatives on April 27 by a vote of 80-34-0. Lilly’s bill would expand record sealing eligibility, allowing ex-offenders with previous nonviolent, nonsexual felony convictions to apply to have their records sealed from view by many private employers.

Record sealing isn’t a free pass to erase a person’s criminal history – anyone who wants to have his or her record sealed must make it through an adversarial process in the courts. First, the person has to file a petition with a judge. This triggers notification of law enforcement officials, who have the chance to oppose sealing the record if they believe the ex-offender still poses a public safety risk. If there is no objection and a judge approves the petition, the ex-offender’s record is closed to most viewers, except for law enforcement agencies and employers in sensitive fields such as schools and financial institutions.
But many ex-offenders don’t even have a shot at the process.
HB 2373 would offer more ex-offenders that chance.

Why record sealing matters

More than 90 percent of employers in the U.S. conduct criminal background checks for some applicants, and more than 70 percent of employers conduct criminal background checks for all job applicants, according to a 2012 study from the National Consumer Law Center.

Through this process, ex-offenders are often disqualified from job openings, even if they’re qualified for a position.
And if ex-offenders can’t find work, they won’t be able to get back on their feet; or provide for their families; and many can’t afford basic necessities such as food and housing.

This isn’t just hypothetical – it happens every day. And when ex-offenders can’t find work, they’re more likely to re-enter prison. Nearly 50 percent of ex-offenders in Illinois are back in prison within three years.

But a job changes that. Illinois ex-offenders who are employed a year after release can have a recidivism rate as low as 16 percent, according to research from the Safer Foundation.

This problem doesn’t just affect the individual struggling to find work. Taxpayers have a major incentive to support rehabilitation over recidivism. Each instance of recidivism in Illinois costs, on average, approximately $118,746, including costs borne by taxpayers and victims, according to a report by the Illinois Sentencing Policy Advisory Council.

So how can the state make it likelier that ex-offenders can find work instead of resorting to crime?
By removing barriers preventing them from getting a good job.
HB 2373 would do just that.

Business liability reform, eliminating wait times for record sealing petitions also needed

Record sealing rules don’t have any effect on a person’s digital footprint. So even if a judge decides to seal someone’s record, that doesn’t necessarily mean she has a fresh start. To have the most meaningful impact possible, state lawmakers should also reform negligent hiring liability laws. Employers are rightly concerned about liability issues related to hiring. Employer liability rules should be limited to cases in which an employer knew of an employee’s conviction, the charge was directly related to the nature of the employee’s work, and the conduct that gave rise to the alleged injury is the basis for the lawsuit. Colorado has adopted similar reforms in recent years. In Illinois, House Bill 665 would change the state’s law so that a cause of action may not be brought against a party solely for hiring an employee or independent contractor who has been convicted of a nonviolent, nonsexual offense. Under this bill, a lawsuit may only be brought if the conviction was directly related to the nature of an employee’s or independent contractor’s work, and the conduct that gave rise to the alleged injury that is the basis of the suit.
Illinois should also eliminate the waiting period that currently exists before a person may apply to seal his or her record – if that person is rehabilitated, there is no reason to make him or her wait an arbitrary amount of time before petitioning for a better shot at employment. Making that person wait only increases the likelihood that he or she will not be able to make a living.
Reforms such as record sealing expansion and negligent-hiring liability make it likelier that ex-offenders will be able to find work – and stop cycling in and out of prison. That means they and their families will have a chance to succeed. And the more ex-offenders enter this virtuous cycle – instead of returning to prison – the better off the state and taxpayers will be, too.

TAGS: Camille Lilly, criminal justice reform, recidivism, record sealing, reentry

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