Posted Fri, Jul 26, 2024 at 1:24 am CT|Updated Fri, Jul 26, 2024 at 1:29 am CT|
Wednesday 7/24/2024 is a day for everyone to remember. The Residents of Homer Township which includes Lockport, New Lenox, Lemont, Homer Glen, and Unincorporated totaling about 41,000 people will finally have a place to hold events for non-profit groups, basketball for everyone including wheelchair basketball, Senior Bingo, Senior lunches, Senior Yoga, after school programs, and on and on.
This is absolutely a place everyone will use. There will Be no competition for existing business like restaurants or banquet halls. There will be no competition with any business.
There will be no tax increase. The Township will be working on getting grants and donations, as well as selling naming rights for various sections, and even the building.
Volunteers will be the heart of the center. Just think of Seniors reading books to grade school children, and master gardeners working with people on a community garden.
The historic barn on the site will not be touched nor the park on the north west end of the site.
As Supervisor of Homer Township I don’t understand why the village Trustees except Dan Fialko and Jenifer Consolino wanted to stop or stall this center from being built. The Township Asked in February to go the the Plan Commission in March. In March the township was told they will have to wait till April. April was then canceled and moved to May which was canceled till June when the Township was told they needed more items to be completed. The Township served the Village with a breach of the Annexation Agreement, which would allow the property to become unincorporated and permits would come from the County. Finally in July the Village except Dan Fialko and Jennifer Consolino tried to table it again which failed and allowed vote to pass with an abstention by Trustee Mason and yes votes by Fialko and Consolino.
The People finally won! The people will have something everyone can enjoy!
We at Homer Township thank God this project is moving forward.
Michelle Mullins/for the Daily Southtown A large crowd, including members of the Homer Township Board, attend the Homer Glen Village Board July 24, 2024, where several residents spoke against the township’s proposed civic center. (Michelle Mullins/for the Daily Southtown)
The Homer Glen Village Board narrowly approved plans for the Homer Township Civic Center Wednesday, over the objections of some trustees and residents who questioned the soil quality, sewage plan and whether the center was an appropriate use of open space.
The township intends to build a $2.2 million multipurpose building on the Trantina Farm, 15774 151st St., that was purchased for preservation under an Open Space Program voters approved in 1999. The pre-engineered building is expected to be 10,412 square feet with a potential future gym, kitchen and stage.
Because the farm was annexed into Homer Glen in 2022, the township needed village approval to proceed.
A request by Trustee Sue Steilen to table voting on the community center failed. Steilen said she had several questions, including whether the well-and-septic plan could meet the center’s needs and whether the soil was contaminated when clay fill was brought in last year.
Residents last year raised concerns excavation work began without proper plans in place. Township officials said they were trying to lower the price of the civic center by allowing a developer to move clay from a new subdivision in Orland Park to the farm. They said the clay was clean and free of any contaminants.
The township submitted its well-and-septic plan to the village, which still needs approval by the Will County Health Department, village engineer Brett Westcott said.
Township Supervisor Steve Balich said any delays in the project were politically motivated and puts the township at risk of losing a $500,000 federal grant for the center. He said the village has delayed the project since February and said he might try to de-annex the property from the village if permits were not approved.
Jay Bradarich, president of Landmark Construction Services, Inc., explains features of the planned Homer Township Civic Center. (Michelle Mullins/for Daily Southtown)
Village Trustee Dan Fialko said the Plan Commission reviewed the plans and recommended them. Fialko was one of three trustees to vote in favor of the project, which passed by a vote of 3-2 with Trustee Curt Mason abstaining.
“We don’t have a park district building, and we don’t want to raise taxes to come up with a park district building for the village, so this fits perfectly in Homer Glen,” Fialko said.
Fialko said while the project is in Homer Glen boundaries, it affects more than just the village, noting there are about 41,000 residents in the township, which also includes portions of Lockport, New Lenox and Lemont.
Township officials said the center will host small, community-based recreational and social activities, such as senior events, wheelchair basketball and open gym.
Trustee Jennifer Consolino noted residents in 2020 voted overwhelmingly on a township referendum to pursue grant funds for a multipurpose pole barn-style structure for educational, environmental, recreational and social events.
“I see what the township is doing as a benefit to the community,” Consolino said.
Homer Glen resident Regina Robinson speaks out against the civic center during the July 24, 2024, Homer Glen Village Board meeting. (Michelle Mullins/for the Daily Southtown)
Trustee Rose Reynders, who supported the project, said she also had questions and was concerned the township did not host workshops or town hall meetings.
“Although I believe a community center would benefit our residents, I have to wonder why was there no input from the residents, the village or Lockport on the design, the purpose, the uses or the economic impact it will have on our residents,” Reynders said. “Our residents did not have a say on what the vision was for this community center.”
She said she believes the township’s intentions are good, but the township needs to seek out community input for decisions.
“I want a community center for our area. I think it’s needed and I think the seniors and our handicapped children will benefit from it,” Reynders said. “But not done this way. Not without the input from our residents.”
Several residents urged the Village Board to deny the project.
Former Homer Glen Trustee Margaret Sabo reads a statement against the township’s proposed civic center July 24, 2024. (Michelle Mullins/for the Daily Southtown)
Margaret Sabo, a former Homer Glen trustee, said relying on grants and donations to fund the project is unreliable, and hiring staff to teach classes and manage the property will be costly. She questioned whether the township could fund the project without raising taxes.
She said the 2020 referendum was for a more modest, environmentally friendly and inexpensive pole barn. Traffic, soil conditions and the septic system could be problematic, Sabo said.
Resident Regina Robinson said the property should be used only for public outdoor recreation, such as pavilions, bike paths and trails.
Resident Verna Konicek said the community center affects the integrity of the open space property.
“Maybe the public would be behind this if it would stay simple,” Konicek said.
Homer Township Highway Commissioner Brent Porfilio speaks July 24, 2024, in favor of the civic center. (Michelle Mullins/for the Daily Southtown)
Trustee Craig McNaughton, who opposed the project, said approving it would undermine the community’s trust and disregard residents’ voices.
“The development will result in a loss of valuable open space, which is a critical resource for the community,” he said. “The transformation of this land to a community center and parking lot contradicts the original intent of preserving open spaces.”
Brent Porfilio, the Homer Township Highway Commissioner, said the civic center is located in the center of the township and studies that examined traffic, stormwater management, soil, wetlands and accessibility for individuals with disabilities have all been submitted.
Balich said the township will plan a groundbreaking ceremony soon. A foundation has been created to raise funding, and the township continues to seek grants, Balich said.
Michelle Mullins is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
Barack Obama, an old-fashioned ward boss, orchestrates the president’s removal.
By
Rod R. Blagojevich
July 22, 2024
Listen
(2 min)
Democracy took a devastating hit on Sunday when President Biden withdrew from the presidential race. Along the way, he got it wrong. It isn’t Donald Trump who is an existential threat to our democracy. It’s Barack Obama.
In the old-school way of Chicago backroom politics, Mr. Obama was the conductor of the band that successfully orchestrated the removal of the presidential candidate chosen by more than 14 million Democratic primary voters—to be replaced by someone he and the party bosses choose instead. It’s classic ward-boss tactics.
I’ve known Mr. Obama since 1995. We both grew up in Chicago politics. We understand how it works—with the bosses over the people. Mr. Obama learned the lessons well. And what he just did to Mr. Biden is what political bosses have been doing in Chicago since the 1871 fire—selections masquerading as elections.
Mr. Obama and I know this kind of Chicago politics better than anyone. We both rose up in it, and I was brought to ruin by it when the Illinois Legislature impeached and removed me from the governor’s office in 2009 for conversations initiated by Mr. Obama himself. A common element in my case and now Mr. Biden’s is Mr. Obama’s involvement. He’s the central figure who played a behind-the-scenes role in both stories.
While today’s Democratic bosses may look different from the old-time cigar-chomping guy with a pinky ring, they operate the same way: in the shadows of the backroom. Mr. Obama, Nancy Pelosi and the rich donors—the Hollywood and Silicon Valley elites—are the new bosses of today’s Democratic Party. They call the shots. The voters, most of them working people, are there to be lied to, manipulated and controlled.
All along, Mr. Biden and the Democratic politicians have been claiming that this year’s presidential race is about “saving democracy.” They are the biggest hypocrites in American political history.
The party that says it is running to save democracy has already deployed the criminal-justice system against the leading candidate of the opposition party. And now they have successfully maneuvered to dump their duly elected candidate for president.
Mr. Biden’s withdrawal proves something even more sinister. They’ve been lying to us the whole time. The president’s unfitness to run for re-election today didn’t just happen. The Democrats have been covering it up for a long time.
They hid him in the basement when he ran for president in 2020, and they got away with it because of the pandemic. But when Mr. Biden’s cognitive issues were exposed during June’s presidential debate, Mr. Obama and the Democratic bosses could no longer hide his condition. The jig was up, and Joe had to go.
The Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month will provide the perfect backdrop and place for Mr. Obama to finish the job and choose his candidate, not the voters’ candidate. Democracy, no. Chicago ward-boss politics, yes.
Will County Board Republican Leader Steve Balich, R-Homer Township, speaks at a press conference on Tuesday, July 9, 2024. where he claimed his email account on a county computer had been hacked this year. (Bob Okon)
July 09, 2024 at 6:00 pm CDT
Will County Board Republican Leader Steve Balich, R-Orland Park, on Tuesday accused his Democratic counterpart of hacking into his email.
Democratic Leader Jacqueline Traynere, D-Bolingbrook, in turn said she uncovered a vulnerability in the county board email system that has lead to the latest partisan squabble on the county board.
Whoever is right, the dispute reflects another party standoff that puts the county board in a similar light to partisan political disputes in Washington D.C.
“There is a big division in the (county) board between Republicans and Democrats just like in the country,” Balich said when meeting with reporters after his news conference.
Balich called the news conference to draw attention to his complaint in which he claims Traynere hacked into an email that he sent earlier this year.
The email concerned the 143rd Street widening issue in Homer Glen on which Republicans have been at odds with County Executive Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant, a Democrat.
Balich accused Traynere of hacking into his email and sending it to Bertino-Tarrant.
“How often did this happen?” Balich asked. “How many other board members have had their emails hacked into?”
Balich said he reported his allegation on March 6 to the Will County Sheriff’s Office, the Illinois State Police and the FBI.
So far, he had not heard from any of the police agencies and said Tuesday it was time to make his allegation public.
“Jackie Traynere should be ashamed of herself, and she needs to be held accountable,” Balich said.
Traynere, however, said that she detected a problem created by Republican leadership on the Will County Board and contacted board Chairwoman Judy Ogalla, R-Monee.
Will County Board Democratic Leader Jacqueline Traynere (Gary Middendorf – gmiddendorf@shawmedia/Gary Middendorf)
“I immediately called Judy,” Traynere said. “I told Judy I did not intend to do anything with your email.”
According to Traynere, she gained access to Balich’s email while testing whether one password was good for access to all county board computers, a problem she blamed on Republican county board leadership
The email sent to Ogalla’s email account was used by Traynere to gain access to the email, Balich said.
“In the email, I called her (Bertino-Tarrant) a dictator,” he said. “The first thing she said to me after this thing was hacked was, ‘Why did you call me a dictator.’”
Balich said he has learned since the alleged hacking incident that all county board members were given the same password to use for email accounts with the new Chromebooks.
But its unclear who set up the system to allow one password. Balich said it was the county executive’s office. Traynere said it was Ogalla.
Michelle Mullins/for the Daily Southtown Will County Republican Leader Steve Balich, center, holds a news conference July 9, 2024, with other board Republicans including Jim Richmond of Mokena, Vince Logan of Joliet, Raquel Mitchell of Bolingbrook, Katie Deane-Schlottman of Joliet and Julie Berkowicz of Naperville. (Michelle Mullins/for the Daily Southtown)
PUBLISHED: July 9, 2024 at 12:06 p.m. | UPDATED: July 9, 2024 at 3:09 p.m.
Will County Board Republican Leader Steve Balich has filed several complaints with authorities alleging board Democratic Leader Jacqueline Traynere engaged in a cybercrime by accessing emails between himself and County Board Chair Judy Ogalla.
Balich, of Homer Glen, said Traynere logged into Ogalla’s email account without permission.
Traynere then forwarded an email exchange between Balich and Ogalla regarding the controversial 143rd Street road widening project in Homer Glen to the county executive, according to Balich.
Balich and five other Republican board members called a news conference Tuesday, calling for Traynere to be held accountable. Balich said he also filed complaints with the FBI, Will County sheriff and the Illinois State Police special investigations unit.
The Will County sheriff’s office took a report but a spokesperson said for reasons of conflict of interest, it was forwarded to the Illinois State Police. A state police spokesman said it has “an active investigation” but no additional information at this time.
The FBI media office said it is standard policy not to comment on any specific investigation.
“As a board member, when I send something out, I think it’s confidential,” Balich said. “I don’t expect anybody, especially another board member, to be hacking into my email, reading it and then sending it to somebody else. So the big question is how does this happen?”
Traynere, of Bolingbrook, said the situation was not nefarious, nor did she hack into Ogalla’s email account.
Jacqueline Traynere (Will County government)
Traynere said she heard a rumor that when county board members were issued new laptops, they all had the same password. She said she was testing this theory and chose the county board chair. She said she couldn’t believe the chair would have the same password as her.
She said the rumor was correct, and she gained access to Ogalla’s account.
“I immediately closed it,” Traynere said. “It freaked me out.”
Traynere said she later opened her laptop again and didn’t realize she was still logged in under Ogalla’s name. She thought she was reading her own emails, saw an email exchange that confused her and forwarded it to the county executive.
Traynere said she then realized she hadn’t been automatically logged off of Ogalla’s account and called Ogalla to let her know the situation.
“I tested a theory that never should have proven itself,” Traynere said. “I sent an email to the IT department. This is ridiculous. This violates every rule of cybersecurity.”
Traynere said she shouldn’t have tested the theory with Ogalla, the Republican chair from Monee, but rather a fellow Democrat.
Balich said that everyone on the county board had the same password, but the members were not aware of it nor were they told to change their passwords after the laptops were issued. He said as the Republican leader, he should have been told that passwords were the same.
“To me, this is a very serious thing,” Balich said. “I want her held accountable. What does that mean? I don’t know what accountable is going to be.”
Traynere said she was unaware of the news conference until after it happened, and said it was a “political stunt” by board Republicans.
“These antics take away from the role we are supposed to be playing here, which is to move county government forward to help our residents,” Traynere said.
Balich said there is a lack of trust among board members.
“There’s a big dissension on the board, between Republican and Democrat, just like the country,” Balich said. “And there are very few issues that seem to not be contentious.”
Traynere said actions like the news conference do not help bridge the gap.
CV NEWS FEED // A Kentucky court this week temporarily blocked the Biden administration’s pro-LGBT Title IX changes from going into effect in the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, and West Virginia.
On June 17, Chief Judge Danny Reeves of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky issued a preliminary injunction in a ruling on State of Tennessee v. Cardona.
Reeves’ injunction comes just days after a Louisiana court also temporarily stopped the Biden administration’s new interpretations of Title IX from being implemented in four other states: Louisiana, Mississippi, Idaho, and Montana.
The Department of Education announced the pro-LGBT rewrite of Title IX in April. As CatholicVote previously reported, “Instead of protecting young girls, the Title IX changes will redefine ‘sex’ to include the ‘gender identity’ which would allow each individual to define their sex as ‘an individual’s sense of their gender.’”
The June 17 ruling highlighted that the Title IX change deprives women and girls of access to privacy in spaces such as bathrooms and locker rooms.
The ruling stated that “despite society’s enduring recognition of biological differences between the sexes, as well as an individual’s basic right to bodily privacy,” the Biden administration’s new rule “mandates that schools permit biological men into women’s intimate spaces, and women into men’s, within the educational environment based entirely on a person’s subjective gender identity.”
“It is an inescapable conclusion based on the foregoing discussion that the Department has effectively ignored the concerns of parents, teachers, and students who believe that the Final Rule endangers basic privacy and safety interests,” the ruling reads.
The ruling also stated that the Biden administration’s rewrite “has serious First Amendment implications,” pointing out: “The rule includes a new definition of sexual harassment which may require educators to use pronouns consistent with a student’s purported gender identity rather than their biological sex.”
The ruling added that “educators likely would be required to use students’ preferred pronouns regardless of whether doing so conflicts with the educator’s religious or moral beliefs. A rule that compels speech and engages in such viewpoint discrimination is impermissible.”
The ruling described the Department of Education’s Title IX rewrite as “arbitrary and capricious” and noted that the administration did not “provide a reasoned explanation” for the change.
“Notably, the Department does not provide a sufficient explanation for leaving regulations in place that conflict with the new gender-identity mandate, nor does it meaningfully respond to commentors’ concerns regarding risks posed to student and faculty safety,” the ruling stated.
Republican Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares announced the KY court’s decision in a June 17 post to his X account.
“The Biden Administration’s latest power grab would jeopardize half a century of landmark protections for women, violate the First Amendment, and ignore the clear text of the Title IX law passed by Congress,” Miyares wrote. “The rule should have never been issued in the first place.”
Fauci Refuses to Disavow Closing Churches, Schools, and Businesses During COVID
Dr. Anthony Fauci insisted the shutdown of churches, schools, and businesses was justified to stop what he called a “tsunami of deaths” due to COVID, though he admitted there was no scientific evidence for requiring measures such as six-foot social distancing or masks for children under five.
The former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) testified Monday before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, defending his actions and decisions regarding mitigation measures and the experimental mRNA shots many Americans were forced to take.
During his questioning of Fauci, Rep. Michael Cloud, R-TX, recounted the COVID mitigation measures the former chief White House medical advisor supported after the outbreak of the virus. Cloud asked Fauci “to give me a yes or no as to whether you believe these measures were justified.”
When asked about business, church, and school closures, stay-at-home orders, and mask mandates for adults and even young children, Fauci claimed his support for the measures was justified because of the “tsunami of deaths early on,” but then qualified his response with the statement, “how long you kept them going is debatable.”
But Cloud pressed Fauci further.
“Excuse me – mask mandates for children under five? There’s scientific evidence supporting that?” the congressman asked.
“There was no study that did masks on kids before – you couldn’t do the study, you had to respond to an epidemic that was killing four to five thousand Americans,” Fauci argued.
Cloud continued: “Vaccine mandates for employees; vaccine mandates for students; vaccine mandates for military?”
“Vaccines save lives,” Fauci shot back. “It is very, very clear that vaccines have saved hundreds of thousands of Americans and – “
“We’re talking about COVID-19,” Cloud redirected him. “Did or do the vaccines … the COVID-19 vaccine, stop anyone from getting COVID?”
“In the beginning, it clearly prevented infection in a certain percentage of people – but the durability of its ability to prevent infection was not long,” Fauci said.
“And they didn’t stop you from spreading it either,” Cloud asserted, a statement that drew a confused response from Fauci.
“Early on it did,” the doctor said, “if it prevented infection, but what became clear that it did not prevent transmission when the ability to prevent infection….”
In December 2020, Fauci made a spectacle of himself receiving the Moderna COVID shot on national television.
“I feel extreme confidence in the safety and the efficacy of this vaccine and I want to encourage everyone who has the opportunity to get vaccinated so that we can have a veil of protection over this country, that would end this pandemic,” he said prior to taking the shot.
In his exchange with Fauci during the hearing, Cloud observed that, despite Fauci’s own admission that what he and other government officials mandated as necessary at the start of the pandemic had changed, their policies did not:
When the American people look at the certainty and the case of which people lost jobs, they lost livelihoods – I had rural hospitals in my area that did not have a single case of COVID in their rural community that had to shut down and people not get care that they did need for cancer and some passed away because of those kinds of things. And time after time again, people’s lives are destroyed and … once the new data came available, we did not see a change of course … as the science became available, there wasn’t like, oh, maybe we should consider the lab leak theory. Oh, maybe we should consider natural immunity. We never heard this messaging coming from you or from anyone else who stood on the sidelines talking about these things, and it’s left the American people with a tremendous distrust.
Indeed, when provided with Democrats’ support during the hearing, Fauci doubled down on his condemnation of those Americans who refused to take the experimental mRNA shots.
Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, CA, for example, referred to Fauci as “an American hero,” denouncing his critics as “conspiracy theorists.”
In response to the support, Fauci again returned to referring to the mRNA shots as “life-saving interventions.”
“The data are incontrovertible that they save lives,” he said:
You know, some have done studies … Peter Hotez has done an analysis of this that shows people who refused to get vaccinated for any variety of reasons, probably are responsible for an additional two to 300,000 deaths in this country.
Fauci’s repeated outright denunciation of Americans who refused the experimental COVID shots hearkened back to the words of Subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup, R-OH, who expressed to Fauci in his opening remarks that the former NIAID director had become “so powerful that any disagreements the public had with you were forbidden and censored on social and most legacy media time and time again.”
“That is why so many Americans became so angry — because this was fundamentally un-American,” Wenstrup said.
A woman has been found guilty of several crimes in relation to “squatting” in a Tinley Park home for two years. (Shutterstock)
TINLEY PARK, IL — Nearly a decade after a woman was outed for “squatting” in a Tinley Park home for two years, a judge finally found her guilty.
Michele Parker, who lived in the house on Mallow Street rent- and mortgage-free, was convicted on May 13 of burglary, theft and providing false information, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office confirmed to Patch.
Parker’s squatting saga made headlines in April 2015, as the property’s owner made a push to get her out of the house she and her two daughters had been living in for two years. Robert Moss, of A. Tarraf Construction, said the company bought the property as an investment in November 2014, Patch previously reported, in a neighborhood where homes typically were selling for upwards of $350,000 at the time. Moss and his business partner buy and flip homes, with realtor Moss then listing the homes for sale.
After Moss and his partner took possession of the home, they tried to expedite her departure—including offering her $5,000 to be out in seven days, Moss told Patch. But nothing short of eviction seemed to work.
They took her to court, where she claimed to have a lease in place with a rent of $1,500 per month. Parker reportedly couldn’t provide any documentation of said lease. Then again, in the final hour, Parker pulled another ace out of her sleeve, saying she was housing an ill elderly woman confined to a wheelchair. Social Services then stepped in, further delaying her leaving the premises.
“She was just really slick, and she came across very professional,” Moss told Patch. “… And played the victim the whole way through.
“… She knew how to play this game.”
Parker was eventually evicted, and she relocated to Country Club Hills, a source close to the case said, but it took a court nearly 10 years to convict. Cook County Judge Thomas Byrne found her guilty last month.
Parker wasn’t the first squatter he’s dealt with, and she won’t be the last. They offered her more than the typical amount for her to leave, Moss said, but it wasn’t enough.
“It’s usually not $5,000—it’s usually $1,000, $1,500—usually that works,” Moss said. “But with her, she didn’t even want $5,000.
“She was definitely the worst one I ever had to deal with. … She knew she could be in there forever.
“It was terrible … a lot of time involved, money on attorneys. She dragged us back to court with some other BS story.”
She had been in the home before Moss and his partner owned it, and they weren’t sure how her time there began. The home could have rented for $2,500 a month at the time, Moss said. For the five months he owned it prior to her eviction, Moss estimates Parker’s freeloading cost him approximately $12,500.
“I don’t know how she got into that home,” he said. “The way they do this, they get into a home, and as long as there is a piece of furniture in that home, you call the police, the police can’t do anything about it, because they don’t know if the lease is legitimate or not. That’s why it takes so long—it has to go through the court system.”
It’s not as simple as telling the “squatter” to leave, or changing the locks, Moss said. The only way landlords or property owners can legally remove a squatter from the property is to follow standard Illinois eviction laws.
Moss said he continues to deal with squatters, ballparking the total number at 10 in the last 15 years. While the solutions might seem simple to many, they’re just not, Moss said.
“You can’t go shut their electric off, their water—you can’t do that, or you’ll get arrested,” Moss said. “It doesn’t work that way.”
Parker was taken into custody after the verdict was delivered. Moss was astonished to learn of the conviction reached after so much time. It’s an outcome he doesn’t often see in similar scenarios.
“I’m absolutely shocked,” Moss said. “I’m happy—hats off to these guys, they’re actually doing their jobs, and that’s the way it should be.
“I’m glad to see something’s being done about it.”
For those of you who have not seen the 2011 World War I movie “War Horse”, there is a scene near the end of the movie where the frightened horse, Joey, gets wrapped in painful barbed wire in “no-man’s land.” The wire is ultimately cut by men from both sides under a white flag of truce, with worries that the snap-back in cutting the wire could cause more damage to the horse than the original tangling. This is where America is today – a beautiful and courageous country, on the ground, wrapped in painful ideological barbed wire, unable to move, and certain not to survive if not freed.
In last week’s column, Messaging No God, Miss Constitution recommended three steps all Americans who care about the fate of the country can take to figure out what is true and what should be done.
Step 1: personal prayer for the gift of wisdom and courage and for forgiveness for any neglect of duty to our nation.
Step 2: reliance on the empirical for determining what is factually true; confidence in one’s common sense; faith in one’s judgment. The empirical – what one authentically hears, sees, smells, tastes, touches – can help negate facts that are manufactured or manipulated.
Step 3: critical thinking skills that beget significant questioning of all that is portrayed as factually true, ideologically correct, and or emotionally binding.
These steps, in order or simultaneously taken, amount to the careful barbed wire cutting that occurred in “War Horse.” Take a clear-eyed look at what is actually happening. Ask difficult questions and demand precise honest answers. Become familiar with what constitutes our governing system, Rule of Law, and actual history. Make sure your children and grandchildren learn it. (You might want to start with Miss Constitution’s Apples of Gold – Voices From the Past that Speak to Us Now).
Our governing system is based on objective truths, and the notion of the development of the person in his or her journey towards virtue. The system is founded on a belief in God and in unalienable rights that emanate from God. Assuming corruption in humankind, our system splits the atom of power between local/state governments and the federal government. The federal system then splits authority between three co-equal branches– executive, legislative, and judicial. There is to be a balance in these three power centers. The three federal branches are not to overwhelm local/state power. People are to be left free choice within the Rule of Law – this is personal Liberty, a cherished American value.
What happened to this Founding model?
It was abandoned around the turn of the 20th century for a system based on the subjective, the notion of the perfectibility of humankind, and the federal government’s unlimited power in creating a political utopia. The new model, called Progressivism, was espoused best 100 years ago by American Herbert Croly, the first editor of The New Republic:
“Democracy must stand or fall on a platform of possible human perfectibility. [T]he American state will in effect be making itself responsible for a morally and socially desirable distribution of wealth.”
Human perfectibility? Humanity first, not God? The state as the sole arbiter of the distribution of wealth? This is all unthinkable to the Founders, and decimates the principles underlying our Constitutional Republic. Progressivism (a form of Marxism) has marched, with the aid of masterful propaganda techniques, virtually non-stop from Teddy Roosevelt through Woodrow Wilson and on to today. Progressive thinking has infected both major political parties and otherwise well-meaning people. It represents that tangle of barbed wire so thoroughly entwined in the American mind that to resist its painful barbs is taught by many educational institutions as useless.
Progressivism is not just a part of some American minds, it forms the basis of the push toward globalism, of the relinquishment of national sovereignty, of international bodies dictating domestic criminal punishments, of gigantic re-distributions of national wealth under the guise of climate change or pandemics unleashed by global actors. It is the basis of the minimization of our national trust in God disguised as “separation of church and state.” There is no separation in our system between the individual and his or her duty to God and Moral Law.
In day to day terms, the Progressive state tells you what car to drive; taxes your property until you are forced to relinquish it; stifles open scientific inquiry; promotes alienation from your children; pronounces Christianity a terror threat; denigrates merit; and tries to sell you the idea that the pain you feel from your barbed-wire prison is what you deserve.
The empirical truth, however, is what you can see, hear, taste, smell and touch. This is the objective reality of a spy balloon allowed to cross over our military installations unimpeded; this is the objective reality of disregarding vetting requirements for all who enter the United States; this is the objective reality of government-promoted violent crime and drug trafficking; this is the objective reality of murdered beached whales; and this is the objective reality of collapsed governing institutions, including a politically-neutral judiciary – a judiciary once the cornerstone of our Rule of Law.
Why is critical thinking so important?
Critical thinking is about asking hard public policy questions of those who seek or are in power. No one dared ask Teddy Roosevelt why he broke faith with the Filipino people and began slaughtering those he had promised to free from Spain. This questioning is especially hard to do when societal situations are dire or when the country is attacked. Asking hard questions can divide families and lose friendships. It is a trained skill that used to be at the heart of American higher education. Its absence leaves persons and populations open to manipulative re-wiring of the brain, especially in the young.
Is it too late for America to recover? Can her wounds heal sufficiently? Are there courageous persons ready to enter no-man’s land and free her from the barbed wire constraints she imposed upon herself?
Well, of course, it is possible. We have been programmed in these 100+ years to deny what we know to be true. We have allowed ideologues to sell us their version of “fair”; we have allowed atheists to turn us away from God; we have allowed the incompetent to rise above the worthy; we have allowed the subjective to overwhelm the objective; we have allowed Progressivism to replace our Constitutional Republic and Rule of Law.
In “War Horse”, Joey the horse was saved by goodness and he was ultimately reunited with the boy who raised him. May goodness save us now, and may we be reunited with the Republic so many patriots gave their lives for. Joey survived the barbed wire in the worst of war zones. America can survive, as well, should we desire to do so.
Steve Balich, the Republican leader of the Will County Board and Homer Township supervisor, ordered the U.S. flag outside the township offices to be flown upside down on Friday. (Homer Township)
The Republican leader of the Will County Board, who also serves as Homer Township supervisor, is defending himself after ordering the U.S. flag outside the township offices to be flown upside down Friday as a symbol of national “distress” following former President Donald Trump’s conviction last week on 34 felony counts.
Steve Balich, long a controversial right-wing figure in Will County politics, is also a Trump delegate to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July and has been hosting regular weekend rallies for the former Republican president.
In a statement posted on the township’s website, Balich sought to explain his decision to fly the inverted flag outside the taxpayer-funded offices. He said it was “bigger than Republican vs. Democrat” as he also repeated a series of Trump-related campaign talking points critical of Democrats about immigration, inflation and the judicial system.
“Flying the flag upside down represents distress, and I truly believe that our country is in distress and our Constitution is under attack,” Balich wrote of the Manhattan jury’s verdict Thursday finding Trump guilty of falsifying business records to hide hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels.
“Choosing to fly our symbol of liberty upside down for that limited time was one of the hardest decisions I have ever made in my life. I love this country, and I love that flag,” he said, adding he held “in utmost esteem those who have served and died for our country and the flag.”
“By making this statement, I wanted us as Homer Township residents to see the threat before us, reach out to our neighbors, and initiate peaceful discussions about what is occurring in our country,” he said.
Balich’s comments posted Saturday on the township’s website were far less strident than statements he made to the Daily Southtown on Thursday hours after the jury’s verdict. He told the Southtown the U.S. was once “the greatest country in the world and now it stinks.” Of the prosecution, he said, “New York is just an example of the scumbags running our country.”
In an interview with the Tribune on Sunday, Balich said he didn’t view his actions as using the flag as a political prop to express his personal views on taxpayer property.
“I would consider it as something that’s a fact,” Balich said. “I wasn’t considering it my personal views. I was considering just what it is, a statement of distress, because what’s going on in the entire country is crazy.”
He said his actions were designed to provoke discussion, saying, “I was hoping I would get a lot of people to open up, rise up, talk about it, really think about what’s happening, because it’s all these things that are going on that are not what I grew up with. … We’ve got to get back to what I would consider what’s normal. We’ve got to get back to a time when everything was different, when everything was working.”
Balich said he decided to reverse his decision and order the flag flown right-side-up after speaking to personal legal counsel, saying he was “thinking I’m going to be sued.” But he said he would prefer leaving the flag flying inverted.
“It’s been done, and I don’t regret it, and I believe we are in distress,” he said. “I think everyone has got their anger or their happiness or whatever you want to say out of their system, and the flag is like it should be, and now everybody’s going on, and it’s kind of like the incident is over with.”
The upside-down American flag has gained attention recently after reports it was flown outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito after the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in which Trump supporters sought to halt the certification of the 2020 presidential election results. A flag like that was carried by many rioters who chanted Trump’s false claims of election fraud in his loss to President Joe Biden.
The AP reported Friday that imagery of upside-down American flags appeared throughout social media after the Trump verdict, including from accounts held by Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, and Donald Trump Jr., his eldest son. The inverted flag was also embraced by right-wing pundits and Fox News contributors as well as Georgia U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a loyal Trump ally.
On Saturday, downstate Illinois U.S. Rep. Mary Miller of Hindsboro, a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus and a close ally of Greene and Trump, posted on her “X” account the image of another flag that gained prominence from the “Stop the Steel” capitol rioters, known as the “Appeal to Heaven” flag. Such a flag was flown outside Alito’s vacation home last summer, according to The New York Times.
The U.S. Flag Code, embraced by veterans organizations, is largely ceremonial and not enforceable under free speech rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court.
But Democratic state Rep. Harry Benton of Plainfield said Balich should resign from his post for the “flagrant violation” of the code. Benton also said he would pursue legislation in Springfield making it a felony to violate the code on government property.
“If you want to disrespect our flag on your own property, that’s your freedom of expression. I may disagree with your opinion, but you have the freedom to express yourself on your own property. But government property is the people’s property. And on government property, you have to follow the rules,” Benton said in a statement.
Benton said his family has a long history of military service, including a grandfather who was a prisoner of war in a German camp and another grandfather who was chief aviation mechanic on the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise in World War II.
“Our flag is the symbol of our country that multiple generations of my family have fought for, and because of this, we are greatly disappointed in people who disrespect our nation’s flag,” he said.
With a background rooted in Tea Party politics, Balich has led the township to declare itself a “sanctuary for life” in opposition to abortion and had the township board recognize an 8-year-old student for “bravery and courage” for entering a school unmasked during COVID-19. In 2010, he authored a symbolic resolution to make English the “official” language of the township.
