I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself and let you know about a volunteer opportunity this Saturday, October 17th. My name is Todd Koehn and I am now the Americans for Prosperity Field Director in your area. Giulia Volini has decided to take a new direction in her career; she will be greatly missed by all of us at AFP and we wish her the best success in her new endeavor.
This Saturday, October 17th from 10am to 2pm we will be reaching out to voters to let them know about the proposed property tax freeze and urging them to contact their state lawmakers. I don’t have to tell you how Illinois has some of the highest property taxes in the nation, but we need your help reminding voters that they can make a difference.
Americans for Prosperity
Property Tax Freeze Phone Bank
Saturday, October 17th
10am – 2pm
924 N State St.
Lockport, IL
FREE Food and Drinks will be provided
Before joining Americans for Prosperity I had spent five years with the Illinois House Republicans as a communications analyst and also as a campaign manager during the campaign season. Through this work I was able to see first hand the dysfunction of Illinois’ state government. Illinois ranks near the top in highest debt, most corruption, highest property taxes, and most outmigration; we can do better.
Now more than ever we need people to stand up and make their voices heard.
I joined AFP because they are taking a stand against the reckless tax and spend policies of Springfield. Illinois is at a crossroads and I know that you are ready to take back your state. I hope that you will come to consider me a resource in making your voice heard. Together we can make a real difference in our community and hold our elected officials accountable.
Join us this Saturday, October 17th from 10am – 2pm and help turn the tide against ever-increasing property taxes.
To RSVP you can simply send me an email at tkoehn@afphq.org or call my cell phone 224-239-5311.
Sincerely,
Todd Koehn
Field Director
Americans for Prosperity – Illinois
P.S. Our AFP Lockport office, located at 924 N State St., will remain open going forward and I hope to utilize this space as a meeting point for like-minded conservatives who are tired of seeing their tax dollars wasted. We have the latest tools available to reach out to our local communities and we plan to use these tools to educate voters and bring about a real change in our government. If you would like more information about how you can make a difference, click here.
Americans for Prosperity is doing a phone bank supporting a property tax freeze
Remains of Youngest Saint in Orland Park Today; Mass Tonight
Originally posted on the Orland Park, IL Patch
St. Maria Goretti’s holy relic will be available for public viewing until 11 p.m. A solemn Mass is scheduled for 7 p.m.
On Thursday, the Vatican-sponsored Pilgrimage of Mercy U.S. Tour comes to Plainfield at St. Mary Immaculate Church, 15629 South Route 59. Six federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security and a Chicago Police honor guard watch over the remains of St. Maria Goretti during the tour.
St. Maria Goretti was an 11-year-old Italian girl stabbed to death while resisting a neighbor trying to rape her in 1902. Maria is said to have forgiven her attacker, Alessandro Serenelli, as she lay dying of infection from 14 stab wounds inflicted with a metal file. Serenelli was sentenced to 30 years in prison. According to the official Vatican account, he had been in prison for six years when Maria appeared to him in a vision and handed him white lily flowers she had picked from a garden.
The gesture of forgiveness is said to have filled Serenelli with the light of the Holy Spirit. He immediately became contrite, and finished the rest of his sentence in tranquility. His behavioral change was so dramatic that he was released three years early. He eventually joined the Capuchin Franciscans as a lay brother.
She was officially canonized by Pope Pius XII on June 24, 1950. Known as a model of mercy, her remains are embedded in a silver box inside a wax likeness and displayed in a glass case.
The relics were previously displayed at parishes in Philadelphia prior to Pope Francis’ visit. Within the last few weeks, the relics were in New York, at Sing Sing Prison, and in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Michigan. (Visit MariaGoretti.com for the rest of the tour schedule.)
A special Tridentine Mass scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Monday in Chicago.
Number of labor force dropouts at historic high
Posted on October 2, 2015 by Personal Liberty
The Obama economy keeps setting and breaking records — the bad kind.
September’s jobs report, released Friday, shows the U.S. labor force participation rate at yet another record low, undercutting the already-underwhelming numbers that have been reported in recent months.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the labor force participation rate now stands at 62.4 percent, its lowest ratio in nearly four decades. That figure means 94,610,000 otherwise-qualified Americans had dropped out of the labor force as of Sept. 30.
That’s more than one-fourth of the population, including those not of working age, who are now unemployed — and who are convinced, for various reasons, that there’s no point in looking for work right now.
Leaving out all the people who find it pointless to job-hunt, regardless of whether there are 10 or 100 million of them, allows the government to present a sunny unemployment rate of 5.1 percent.
“The labor force participation rate declined to 62.4% after three months in a row at 62.6%. Participation remains near the lowest levels in decades,” a Forbes analysis observed following the report’s publication. “The U-6 rate, which measures under-employment, came in at 10% in September versus 10.3% in August and down from 11.3% a year earlier. The employment-population ratio was 59.2% from 59.4%.”
In addition, the August report — itself already a disappointment — was revised dramatically downward, following the accretion of more data a month after its initial release.
“[Job] [g]ains for August, initially recorded at 173,000, were revised lower to 136,000,” Forbes noted.
This Affects All Northern Illinois Residents/ Smart Meters
Message from DuPage Tea Party regarding Smart Meters:
Com Ed in Northern Illinois is forcibly implementing the Smart Meter Program that we have been concerned about as part of the Agenda 21 objective to actively monitor and control your usage of electricity, water and gas in your home with or without your consent.
What does this mean to you? In addition to being a violation of our 4th amendment rights under the Constitution to private property rights which is a basic fabric of American protection against an overzealous government, they are also security risk as they are easily hackable by anyone. They are as safety concern as they have been known to cause fires by spontaneous combustion, they are a health risk as they constantly emit radio active frequencies and overlap with neighbors frequencies creating an intensified radio active distructive zone that permeates your home, and over billing…would we expect anything less from Com Ed than to make you pay for NOT having the Smart Meter?
The interactions to date we’ve had with Com Ed personnel is just what we would expect. They are condescending and completely ignorant of the real ramifications of Smart Meters. It’s their “job” to use their own talking points and that’s all they do.
In addition, most of our municipal governing bodies are completely ignorant of what is being forced upon us…and them. They just know what they’ve been told by Com Ed.
What can you do? What must you do?
Let our voices be heard loud, strong!
1. If you are a Darien resident, come to a very important village council meeting on:
OCTOBER 19th. 2015
the City of Darien Village Hall
1702 Plainfield Road
Darien, IL
Meet/Greet with the Mayor 6-7 p.m.
Pre-Council Work Session: 7-7:30 p.m.
City Council Meeting: 7:30 p.m.
We need a strong showing of people at this meeting.
2. If you are NOT a Darien resident, find out from your local municipality when they will be discussing the Smart Meter implementation. It has already started in many communitites. Send the info to me at dupageteaparty@gmail.com and I will blast it out to our tea party group so people can be informed and make their voices heard loud and clear on their home turf.
3. Below are suggestions of questions to get you started that you can ask.
1. Am I legally required to accept a Smart Meter, since this violates my 4th Amendment Rights?
2. Since there exists no mandate from the Illinois Commerce Commission, State of Illinois or Federal Government by what right can a Smart Meter be installed on my private property?
3. Is it true that my energy use information will be sold to third party vendors, in order to market products or track my activities in some way?
4. What current evidence proves smart meters to be safe, and meets FCC guidelines? What protocol studies of privacy, safety, security, health, and over-billing issues were done to dateon Smart Meters, and what were the results to any installation?
5. Are utilities getting financial kickbacks in forcing Smart Meter installation, incentivizing and/or bribery in other industrialized countries, under the guise of multi-national Smart
Meter or Smart Grid initiatives?
4. Get educated. This is our last chance to fight this overreach of government on our own homefront.
Stop Smart Meter Websites For Additional Information Include:
1. www.stopsmartmeters.org
2. www.takebackyourpower.net
3. www.stopsmartmetersnow.com
4. www.refusesmartmeter.com
While the Republicans in the federal government continues to fight against Conservatives in the House, the forces behind Agenda 21 continues ever strong in our local communities to take control over our lives. We as “tea party” conservatives must understand that we have the most important fight of our lives in the next year or so until after the election and, God willing, a new President who is not out to destroy America takes office. Those who wish to destroy America as we have known it are going to be overwhelming us with everything they can until then. We dare not give up or think that the battle is over. We must be diligent. This is a fight for our survival. Are you ready?
Claire Van Horn
Founder of the DuPage Tea Party
Taxes in Illinois
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Strong Cities Network / Will police controlled by the UN patrol our streets and maintain UN law
The American people have not figured out yet the attack on our Freedom is ongoing and will not stop till the Government has total control. I for one do not want anything to do with the UN. It is an organization that is in contradiction to the U. S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Liberty as we know it.
Letting the UN have any authority in protecting Americans is absurd. We have rights still, Big Government wants to take them away and the UN is the easiest tool to achieve the goal. This must be kept a secret or the Citizens may rise up and stop it, so there is no traditional media covering it. Is this why Obama has been giving military equipment to local police, why various agencies are buying up all the Ammo, why they want to take our guns, and why they are doing exercises in American cities like Jade Helm.
Americans do not want to see UN police in a position of Authority in our country!
Global Police Force to Fight ‘Extremism’ In U.S. / IS THIS A PLAN TO CONTROL U.S.
Obama Administration and UN Announce Global Police Force to Fight ‘Extremism’ In U.S.
On Wednesday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced at the United Nations that her office would be working in several American cities to form what she called the Strong Cities Network (SCN), a law enforcement initiative that would encompass the globe.
This amounts to nothing less than the overriding of American laws, up to and including the United States Constitution, in favor of United Nations laws that would henceforth be implemented in the United States itself – without any consultation of Congress at all.
The United Nations is a sharia-compliant world body, and Obama, speaking there just days ago, insisted that “violent extremism” is not exclusive to Islam (which it is). Obama is redefining jihad terror to include everyone but the jihadists. So will the UN, driven largely by the sharia-enforcing Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the pro-Islamic post-American President Obama, use a “global police force” to crush counter-jihad forces?
After all, with Obama knowingly aiding al-Qaeda forces in Syria, how likely is it that he will use his “global police force” against actual Islamic jihadists? I suspect that instead, this global police force will be used to impose the blasphemy laws under the sharia (Islamic law), and to silence all criticism of Islam for the President who proclaimed that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”
What is a global police force doing in our cities? This is exactly the abdication of American sovereignty that I warned about in my book, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America. The Obama Department of Justice made it clear that it was exactly that when it distributed a press release last week announcing the “Launch of Strong Cities Network to Strengthen Community Resilience Against Violent Extremism.” In that press release, the DoJ complained that “while many cities and local authorities are developing innovative responses to address this challenge, no systematic efforts are in place to share experiences, pool resources and build a community of cities to inspire local action on a global scale.”
So if the local and municipal effort to counter the euphemistic and disingenuous “violent extremism” is inadequate and hasn’t developed “systematic efforts are in place to share experiences, pool resources and build a community of cities to inspire local action on a global scale,” the feds – and the UN – have to step in. Thus the groundwork is being laid for federal and international interference down to the local level. “The Strong Cities Network,” Lynch declared, “will serve as a vital tool to strengthen capacity-building and improve collaboration” – i.e., local dependence on federal and international authorities.
Lynch made the global (that is, United Nations) involvement clear when she added: “As we continue to counter a range of domestic and global terror threats, this innovative platform will enable cities to learn from one another, to develop best practices and to build social cohesion and community resilience here at home and around the world.”
This internationalist character was brought to the fore by the fact that the Strong Cities Network was launched on September 29 not at the White House or the Department of Homeland Security, or at the FBI headquarters or anywhere else that might be fitting for a national project, but at the United Nations.
Even more ominously, the DoJ press release says that the Strong Cities Network “will strengthen strategic planning and practices to address violent extremism in all its forms by fostering collaboration among cities, municipalities and other sub-national authorities.” Sub-national and international: the press release then quotes Governing Mayor Stian Berger Røsland of Oslo, Norway, a participant in the Strong Cities Network, saying: “To counter violent extremism we need determined action at all levels of governance. To succeed, we must coordinate our efforts and cooperate across borders. The Strong Cities Network will enable cities across the globe pool our resources, knowledge and best practices together and thus leave us standing stronger in the fight against one of the greatest threats to modern society.”
But what is that greatest threat, exactly? Remember, the DoJ presser says that the SCN will “address violent extremism in all its forms.” It also says that it will aid initiatives that are working toward “building social cohesion and resilience to violent extremism.” “Building social cohesion” is a euphemism for keeping peace between non-Muslim and Muslim communities – mostly by making sure that non-Muslims don’t complain too loudly about, much less work against, rapidly expanding Muslim populations and the Islamization of their communities.
The DoJ presser noted that at the launch of the Strong Cities Network, “welcoming remarks” would be offered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein and Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City. The involvement of New York City’s Marxist internationalist mayor is yet another warning sign.
Assert American sovereignty and individual rights. Contact your representatives now. Exhort them to oppose SCN now. Exhort them to keep America free – while it still is.
Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of PamelaGeller.com and author of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. Follow her on Twitter here. Like her on Facebook here.
Caton Farm Bruce Road SRA may change direction
Lockport, Homer area reps push for new road study
Susan DeMar LaffertyContact ReporterDaily Southtown
They contend that the “middle road” part of a proposed $600 million project is not needed
Homer Glen, Lockport and Homer and Lockport townships will pay consultants to re-evaluate a proposed new road that the four local governments no longer want.
The road would be part of a $600 million bridge and road project would run for 111/2 miles from Caton Farm Road and U.S. 30 in Crest Hill, over the Des Plaines River in Lockport to 159th Street and Cedar Road in Homer Glen.
Local officials agree on the need for a second bridge over the river to relieve traffic volume on the 9th Street bridge in downtown Lockport, which handles about 24,700 vehicles per day.
But representatives of the two towns and townships have questioned the need for a new “middle road” between Cedar and Gougar roads in the plan to connect Bruce Road to 159th Street. They’ve pointed out that there are three north-south roads within 11/2 miles — Interstate 355, Cedar Road and Gougar Road — in contending that a fourth road is not necessary.
And they’re willing to pay up to $390,000 to engineer an alternative route that would connect Bruce Road to I-355, allowing traffic to use I-355 to reach 159th Street and Cedar Road.
Lockport and Homer Glen and Lockport and Homer townships were all represented on the Transportation Corridor Committee that initially planned and approved the bridge and road project in 2009. The four governments now say eliminating the north-south middle road makes sense and makes the project less expensive.
“So many things have changed in the last five years,” Lockport City Administrator Ben Benson told the Will County Board’s public works committee Tuesday. “This (alternative) makes more sense. We need to get all TCC members on board.”
The public works committee asked the Transportation Corridor Committee to reconvene and consider the request to do away with the middle road. The TCC includes representatives of all governments in the corridor, including Will County, Homer Glen, New Lenox, Lockport, Crest Hill and Joliet and Homer, Lockport and Plainfield townships.
Benson said if the TCC decides that the route should not be changed “we will live with that outcome.”
If additional engineering studies are done, it could take up to three years to complete them, according to Bruce Gould, director of the Will County Division of Transportation.
Others are opposed to another portion of the project — the widening of Oak Avenue through the unincorporated Fairmont community in Lockport Township.
Valerie Broadhurst, representing the Fairmont Community Partnership, told the committee that making what’s now a two-lane rural road into a five-lane highway would have significant impacts on the impoverished area.
But the Fairmont part of the corridor will not be part of the engineering study, Gould said. He said studies that will evaluate the project’s environmental, social and economic impacts on Fairmont and all communities in the corridor have not yet been completed.
Europe: Seizing Homes to House Muslim Migrants
Pamela Geller
on 28 September, 2015 at 06:55
In a deeply disturbing development in the Muslim invasion of Europe, Europeans are being forced from their homes to accommodate the invaders.
Never let a crisis go to waste is the theme of the left. Every crisis must be used to seize power, money and property for the agendas of the left. The Muslim migrant crisis in Europe is no different……(more)
Swedes’ homes may be confiscated to accommodate asylum seekers using obscure legislation from 1992, the “Threat and Risk Assessment Commission” established that the Swedish government should have the option to seize property, especially summer homes, from the Swedish people in a time of crisis.
It was monstrous that Nazi concentration camps like Buchenwald and Dachau, hallowed ground, have been used for this. Now they are seizing people’s homes.
And now this:
“German nurse shocked after being forced out of flat to make way for refugees,” RT, 26 Sep, 2015
Having lived in the same flat for 16 years, a German woman is being forced to move out to make way for refugees, because building a new shelter is too expensive. The 51 year-old nurse, who has helped asylum seekers in the past, was shocked by the news.
Bettina Halbey, who lives alone in the small town of Nieheim, received a letter from her landlord and the local municipality at the start of September, Die Welt newspaper reported on Thursday. “I was completely shocked and I can’t even begin to find the words to describe how the city has treated me,” Halbey told the German publication. “I have had to go through a lot of difficulties recently, and then I get this notice. It was like a kick in the teeth.” Halbey will have until May 2016 to find a new place to live, along with her dog and her cat. The three-story building, where she rented a 90 sq/m flat will now be turned into accommodation for refugees, who are seeking to make Germany their new home. The mayor of Nieheim, Rainer Vidal, which has a population of just over 6,000, defended the decision to send the nurse packing, saying converting the building would be “the cheapest option.” “A new residential unit for 30 refugees in Nieheim would cost €30,000 ($33,600). This solution will cost me nothing,” he told Die Welt. Over half the population of Germany lives in rented accommodation and the country has laws to defend the rights of tenants. “Normally, only a private individual can terminate the terms of a contract for personal use. A municipality cannot move into a flat as a legal entity, so the process is legally highly questionable,” Ulrich Ropertz, spokesman of the German Tenants’ Federation, told the Telegraph. Halbey, who brought up two sons as a single parent, became so incensed by the decision that she wrote about her plight on Facebook. The social media reaction was instant. Over 200,000 people have shared her story, which was also picked up by the German media. The nurse says that she is not against Germany taking in refugees and she says she got on well with asylum seekers who had earlier become her neighbors. “We take care of each other. Helping people, this is of the utmost importance to me,” Halbey said.
image: http://pamelagellercom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Screen-Shot-2015-09-27-at-2.01.29-PM-800×521.png
Mayor Vidal slammed Halbey for going public with her complaints and added that she had been given ample time to find new accommodation.
“I find it very regrettable that the tenant has sought to go public with her issues. We have given her a generous period of notice, up until May of next year. We are also willing to help her find a new place to live. There have been several opportunities, but each one has failed because no one wants to offer her a flat because of her dog,” Vidal said.
On Thursday, the German government agreed to allocate a further €2 billion ($2.24 billion) for refugee housing, with €500 million ($560 million) to be spent on the construction of new accommodation centers. Local authorities have also implemented their own strategies, such as Hamburg’s plans to turn empty commercial properties into shelters, while empty apartments could serve the same purpose in Berlin.
Germany could receive between 800,000 and one million refugees this year, according to the UN, with an estimated 8,000 people arriving in Europe every day.
Read more at http://barbwire.com/2015/09/28/europe-seizing-homes-to-house-muslim-migrants/
Renewed Efforts to Defund Sanctuary Cities
Sanctuary cities are jurisdictions that have decided to not follow with U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) request for detained immigrants. The “Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act” (S.2146), introduced by Sen. David Vitter, R-La., would defund some federal dollars from the sanctuary cities and “redirect these funds to states and localities that follow the law.”
According to a statement from Vitter, he has been working with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to vote on the legislation in the next few weeks. So far, the bill’s co-sponsors are fellow Republicans and include two presidential candidates: Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.
The topic of sanctuary cities reignited following the death of Kathryn Steinle by an undocumented immigrant. Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, who was deported from the U.S. on five occasions due to drug-related felonies, shot Steinle in California. He was previously released from a San Francisco jail last April, and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an agency within DHS, requested his detention in order for an ICE agent to pick him up.
“Kate Steinle’s murder tragically exposed the dangers of an inconsistent and ineffectual immigration enforcement policy, which encourages flagrant violations of our laws,” said Rubio, in a statement. “We need to fix our broken immigration system, but we can’t do it as long as the belief persists that our immigration laws can be violated without any consequences.”
Rubio’s inclusion comes two years after he was an original co-sponsor of the Senate’s bipartisan comprehensive immigration legislation, “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act” (S.744). The Senate bill called for several hundred miles of fencing on the southern U.S. border, in addition to an employment verification system for immigrants, training for nearly 38,405 full-time active duty U.S. Border Patrol agents, and it would have allowed the U.S. Attorney General to increase the number of immigration court judges and reform the visa process.
Cruz said jurisdictions should not accept federal taxpayer money while “turning a blind eye to the illegal aliens in their midst.” The Texas senator added that current laws are not enough to deter immigrants who have already been deported from the U.S.
“Of course, stiff penalties alone will not suffice. Congress must hold this (Obama) Administration accountable for its failure-if not its outright refusal-to enforce federal immigration laws and ensure the safety and protection of the American people,” said Cruz.
The “Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act” would also require DHS to publicly list the “sanctuary” jurisdictions, hold funds and grants to any aforementioned jurisdictions and establish a mandatory five-year sentence to immigrants — previously convicted of re-entering the U.S. “after being convicted of an aggravated felony or being convicted of having illegally re-entered the U.S. twice prior.”
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For the latest updates, follow Latin Post’s Politics Editor Michael Oleaga on Twitter: @EditorMikeO or contact via email: m.oleaga@latinpost.com.